Cornish Andrew S, DiDonato Eva M
Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, Pago Pago, 96799 American Samoa.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2004 Apr;48(7-8):768-77. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2003.11.004.
One of the earliest quantitative surveys of soft corals, on a reef flat in Pago Pago Harbour, American Samoa, was repeated 85 years later. The alcyoniid communities there, which were the dominant benthic organisms during the initial survey, have suffered a drastic decline of 99% cover in the interim. The most likely causes of the decline are anthropogenic disturbance associated with reclamation along the harbour from the 1940s to early 1960s, compounded by chronic pollution from industrial wastewater discharge from the mid-1950s to late 1980s. The decline in one dominant species, Sinularia polydactyla, is likely to have serious consequences for the reef as unusually for a soft coral, this had been the major reef building species. Life-history traits of certain Sinularia and Sarcophyton, such as slow growth and low rates of sexual reproduction, mean they will be slower to recover from severe disturbance than many scleractinian corals.
对美属萨摩亚帕果帕果港礁坪上的软珊瑚进行的最早的定量调查之一，在85年后被重复进行。那里的海鸡冠珊瑚群落，在最初的调查中是主要的底栖生物，在此期间其覆盖度急剧下降了99%。这种下降最可能的原因是20世纪40年代到60年代初港口围垦相关的人为干扰，再加上20世纪50年代中期到80年代末工业废水排放造成的长期污染。一种优势物种——多指肉芝软珊瑚数量的下降，可能会给珊瑚礁带来严重后果，因为不同寻常的是，作为一种软珊瑚，它一直是主要的造礁物种。某些肉芝软珊瑚和棘穗软珊瑚的生活史特征，比如生长缓慢和有性繁殖率低，意味着它们从严重干扰中恢复过来的速度会比许多石珊瑚慢。
