Figure 1.
Map of the Hong Kong marine environment, including the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) to the west.
Boxes (NE, E, SE, S and W) are regions of similar coral communities previously identified [8], [12]. Coral coring sites (Lamma Island, Pak Lap Tsai and Crescent Island) from the three regions with long-lived coral species are marked (red circles). Environmental Protection Department (EPD) hydrographic sites used in this study are identified (red triangles). The Pearl River Estuary (PRE) and eastern open ocean waters (EW) end member sites are shown (blue squares) [39].
Figure 2.
Coral X-radiograph negatives from the three regions: Lamma Island (HK005, HK006), Pak Lap Tsai (HK001, HK004), and Crescent Island (HK007, HK008).
Figure 3.
Monthly hydrographic data divided into the wet season (April-September) and the dry season (October-March) plotted to show the median (bold mid-line), the first and third quartiles (box), and 1.5 times each quartile (black lines) for Lamma Island (dark shading), Pak Lap Tsai (light shading) and Crescent Island (no shading).
Data is shown for a) temperature (deg C), b) salinity (psu), c) in situ pH, d) dissolved oxygen (mg L−1), e) turbidity (NTU), f) chlorophyll-a (µg L−1), and g) total inorganic nitrogen (mg L−1).
Figure 4.
Coral extension length (mm band−1) plotted to show the median (bold mid-line), the first and third quartiles (box), and 1.5 times each quartile (black lines) for low-density (dark) and high-density (light) banding.
The bandings are described for Lamma Island (dark shading), Pak Lap Tsai (light shading), Crescent Island (no shading), and all sites (striped). Outlier (star) for all three sites was defined as >3 times each quartile.
Table 1.
Average annual linear extension rate (mm yr−1), standard deviation (S.D.), range of annual extension rates (minimum-maximum), period of analysis and water depth (m) for six Porites cores.
Table 2.
Pearson correlation statistics reported for high-density (light) bands compared to wet season (WS) temperature (°C) and salinity (psu) for all points.
Table 3.
Pearson correlation statistics for low-density (dark) bands compared to wet season (WS) total inorganic nitrogen (TIN), dry season (DS) dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), and TIN and for the environmental parameters compared to one another.
Table 4.
Estimated values of aragonite saturation (Ω) using equations 1–6 and data from Yuan et al. (2011) [39] for wet season Pearl River Estuary and Eastern Open Ocean Waters for both surface and bottom.