Sediment deposition and coral smothering
Fig 5
Time series of images showing sediment smothering during a dredging project, showing the different susceptibility of different morphologies in Porites spp.–see text for explanation.
Colonies in (A) and (B) were from site LNG2, 1.0 km away from the dredging. Legends on the images indicate days since the start of dredging on 19 May 2010 (see text). The images show the contrasting the sediment clearing capacity of the Porites spp. colonies with subtly differing morphologies (bumpy versus smooth, see text). For the arrows, M = mucus or mucous sheet, B = bleaching, S = sediment accumulation, R = reparation/repair contrasting.