Surveyed 27 February 2004.
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The front of Langford And Bird Is's Reef is exposed to the prevailing wind and sea conditions found inshore in the Great Barrier Reef. Manta tow surveys were conducted on the reef slope. The reef slope is generally shallow dropping off into deep water with no discernable bottom. The reef structure has few features including bommies. The benthic community was dominated by sand, but millepora, coralline/turf algae, hard coral, soft coral and macro-algae were also common. Hard coral cover on the reef front was low with no one coral genus dominant. The dominant coral lifeform was massive, but other forms such as tabulate and digitate corals were also present in decreasing order of abundance. Coral bleaching was not present. The fish abundance on the front of Langford And Bird Is's Reef was low. Conspicuous groups of reef fishes included damselfish, parrotfish, surgeonfish, sweetlip and snapper. No crown-of-thorns starfish were observed on the front of Langford And Bird Is's Reef .
Changes in zone-wide live coral cover through time. Points indicate median coral cover in a given survey year. Solid line indicates a moving average taken over three (preceding, actual and following) survey years.
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Many smaller colonies growing on the front of Langford-Bird Island - a sign of good recovery after disturbance a few years ago.
Sarcophyton in the foreground with polyps extended, in the background a massive growth form of Porites.
Impressive sphere shaped colonies of Millepora are common on Langford-Bird Island. Fish abundance is also moderate to high with planktivores (such as Abudefduf sexfasciatus, Caesio cuning, Acanthochromis polyacanthus, Neopomacentrus azysron/bankieri (?), Pomacentrus moluccensis) seen swimming high in the water column in this photo.
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