Results of ordinary least squares regression (OLS) analysis of variation in the percent cover of benthic organisms among patch reefs ranked by level of snorkeling in Akumal Bay, Mexico.

All categories of organisms were quantified as percent cover except for sea urchins, which were assessed as abundance of individuals. Seagrasses (phanerogams) did not occur on the patch reefs and were not included in the present table. Columns include values for all 10 patch reefs examined in the bay, except for the last 2 columns which show values for only the 8 inner bay patch reefs, excluding the 2 outer bay patch reefs (see map Fig 1B for reef locations). The percent cover of both M. cavernosa and A. palmata was too low to be analyzed statistically for variation among only the 8 inner bay sites. Mounding, branching, and plating corals were defined as all species belonging to each of these 3 major growth forms of stony corals. ^ Data log10-transformed, † Data square root-transformed. See text for details.