This week, we had conducted a field survey regarding coral community including fish assemblage in Goto Islands, Nagasaki Prefecture. This is the survey collaborated with the researchers of Nagasaki University and National Institute of Environmental Studies (NIES, Tsukuba City). Goto Island is located offshore of western coast of Kyushu Island.
長崎県の五島列島でサンゴ群集のモニタリング調査を実施しました。国立環境研と長崎大・鹿児島大の合同調査です。
We left from Nagasaki Harbor by the express boat. We could see absolutely beautiful Mt Inasayama. It is a symbolic mountain of Nagasaki City.
長崎港から福江行きの高速船に乗りました。稲佐山がきれいですね。
After we arrived at Fukue City of Goto Islands, we moved to a monitoring site by small private boat.
福江に到着後,さっそく最初のサイトに向かいました。
サンゴ群集は小さな入江の水深5m前後で見られました。
There was a large and beautiful coral community on the subtidal area around 5m deep.
There was little seaweed community on the coral community, however, we could find seagrass bed on the sandy muddy bottom near corals. Basically, I guess that coral and seagrass exist on the different habitat in a cove. However, we could find some juvenile corals on the pebbles in the seagrass bed, suggesting that corals can be invaded into the seagrass community if there was any small substratum.
サンゴ群集内では目立った海藻類はありませんでしたが,砂泥底にはアマモ場がありました。でも,,,砂泥底にもサンゴって加入できるんですね。(温帯域の)アマモ場に加入するサンゴを始めて見ました。
調査の様子は長崎大学の進化・行動生態学のweb siteでも紹介されています。
http://takegaki-lab.sakura.ne.jp/Takegaki_Lab/Home.html