Zonation Patterns and Biodiversity on a Flat Reef Platform: Ecological Insights and Pedagogical Applications from the Magang Intertidal Zone, Taiwan

Flat reef platforms challenge classical steep-shore zonation models by decoupling gross relief from biotic banding. To address this gap, we quantitatively surveyed mobile and sessile communities on the Magang intertidal platform (50 m transect, eleven 1 m² quadrats, ~2.4 m tidal range). We recorded 371 mobile individuals (14 taxa) and 0.87 m² sessile cover (five functional groups) to evaluate their spatial trends.