The Diversity and Biogeography of Western Indian Ocean Reef-Building Corals

A core region of high coral diversity and connectivity exists in the northern Mozambique Channel, driven by unique oceanographic conditions. This study reveals that reef-building coral species richness decreases radially from this central area, challenging the notion of a distinction between mainland and island fauna. Instead, diversity patterns align with primary oceanographic drivers, including the South Equatorial Current, which maintains high diversity in the northern Mozambique Channel and exports it to surrounding regions. The Chagos archipelago was found to be more closely related to the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) than to the Maldives, India, or Sri Lanka, based on hard coral data analysis. The research sampled 21 locations between 2002 and 2011, using SCUBA diving and underwater digital photographs for species identification, with cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling applied to presence/absence data.

Obura, D. (2012). The Diversity and Biogeography of Western Indian Ocean Reef-Building Corals. PLoS ONE, 7(9), e45013. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045013