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Environmentally controlled succession in a late Pleistocene coral reef (Sinai, Egypt)

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Abstract

The concept of ecological succession has been frequently applied in the study of ancient reefs. Whereas Paleozoic and Mesozoic reefs are commonly thought to reveal an autogenic primary—climax zonation, patterns in Neogene and Quaternary reefs are much more diverse. Here, we describe a well-preserved late Pleistocene coral reef from Dahab on Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), which shows a distinct zonation that resembles an ecological succession. In contrast to classical examples of ecological successions, species composition, paleoenvironmental conditions, and coral biodiversity of the Dahab reef indicate an allogenic, sea-level controlled community change, from marginal marine to reef slope and back reef. A review of the literature confirms that autogenic, short-term successions are virtually absent in Quaternary reefs. We predict that long generation times of corals make it unlikely that classical autogenic successions develop in reefs at all, unless environmental conditions are unusually stable.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Julien Millet for assistance in the field and the Red Sea Environmental Centre in Dahab, especially Christian Alter and Nina Milton, for support and cooperation. This research was funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung. We also wish to thank the reviewers for their comments, which greatly improved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to H. Mewis.

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Communicated by Geology Editor Prof. Bernhard Riegl

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Mewis, H., Kiessling, W. Environmentally controlled succession in a late Pleistocene coral reef (Sinai, Egypt). Coral Reefs 32, 49–58 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-012-0968-y

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