CORDIO Status Report 2008.pdf

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recorders were in place over that time, so details of the
critical warm periods at different depths are not
available, but from the HadISST1 data (in prep), the
years 2003 and 2005 both showed warm peaks
extending above 29.5 o C, which are the second and
third warmest values after the 1998 value of 29.9 o C.
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With very few exceptions (most notably Egmont
atoll), at all sites and depths living substrate far
outweighed non-living substrate, and hard coral was
the most dominant form of living benthos. Figure 3
shows, as an example, sites from 5 m depth,
Reef sites at Peros Banos, Salomon and Great
Chagos Bank atolls had greater cover than Egmont or
Diego Garcia atolls, with significantly higher levels of
hard coral cover, as well as greater prevalence of larger,
older corals. In many sites, coral cover appears to have
recovered almost completely (Fig. 4).