Coral Community Structure of the Northeastern and Southwestern

Sides of Camiguin Island, Northern Mindanao, Philippines

Oliver R.T. Paderanga*a, Janet S. Estacionb, Ron Kirby Manit, Bernardo L. Jasma, Jr.
aCamiguin Polytechnic State College, Mambajao, Camiguin
bSilliman University Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences, Dumaguete City
* Corresponding author: opaderanga@gmail.com

Abstract

LIT data for 12 sites around Camiguin Island, Northern Mindanao, Philippines were analyzed
to determine whether the coral communities of the northeastern (NE) and southwestern
(SW) sides had different morphologies; the two sides being subjected to the northeastern
and southwestern monsoons respectively. Results showed that both areas had relatively low
coral cover with small average colony size indicating stress, but that the SW had higher hard
coral cover and higher algal cover, especially that of crustose coralline algae. The NE was
shown to have a higher percentage cover of soft corals. One site that was located in the
southeastern tip of the island had high coral cover of branching and foliose corals,
suggesting that it was not exposed to high wave energy during monsoon seasons, its location
being tangential to the direction of the monsoon winds. The results imply that aside from
high wave energy during the monsoon seasons, the absence or presence of sedimentation
could also be a factor affecting the coral community structures around the island.

Introduction

Camiguin is a small volcanic pear-shaped island 12 kilometers north of Mindanao (Figure 1).
It has a land area of about 265 sq. km. and a coastline of approximately 65 km. It has two
islets beside it, Medano White Island in the northwest and Mantigue in the southeast. As is
typical of islands in the Philippine archipelago, Camiguin experiences two monsoon seasons:
the northeastern monsoon during the months of December to February and peaking in
January, and the southwestern monsoon in June to August and peaking in July (Vallejo,
2003; Wong, 2005). Thus, during each of the monsoons, one side of the island experiences
high wave action while the other side is relatively calm. The exception is to the east of the
southernmost part of the island that is sheltered during either monsoon.
Insert figure 1 here

As there are no nearby islands to the northeast and southwest of Camiguin to shelter it
during monsoon seasons, the island experiences relatively stronger winds and waves during
these times compared to other areas in the archipelago.

Most of the shoreline around the island can be best described as being stony. Beaches with
dark sand of terrestrial origin can be found mostly in the northwestern portion of the island
(Figure 2): Naasag to Poblacion, Mambajao and Bonbon in Catarman. There is a short strip
of gray-brown sandy beach at Sitio Puting Balas of Barangay Tupsan in Mambajao. The
southeastern portion of the island has lighter colored sand, still of terrestrial origin, in San
Roque and Benoni in Mahinog to Maac, Guinsiliban and in the bay area of Poblacion,
Guinsiliban. There is a short strip of white coralline sand to the north of the bay. This is the
only area in Camiguin Island with white sand, the other areas with white sand being located
in the two islets.

Insert figure 2 here.

Studies comparing coral community structures between sites with different exposures to
weather patterns using cluster analysis have been done both locally (Alcala et al, 1991) and
in other countries (Riegl & Velimirov, 1994 and Coral Cay Conservation, 2005). No
comprehensive study of this type has yet been done on the coral community structures
around Camiguin. Studies by researchers from the Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources,
Camiguin Polytechnic State College, Department of Environment & Natural Resources,
Silliman University and Xavier University have been scattered and have usually been done in
the context of assessments for the establishment or status reports of marine reserves.

During the summer of 2008, fish and coral communities of all established marine reserves
around the island and nearby islets were surveyed to collect baseline data for the Camiguin
Coastal Resource Management Project, an NZAID funded project that started
implementation in 2008. This gave the researchers a quite comprehensive set of data to
work on.

The researchers wanted to know whether there was a difference in the morphology of the
coral communities of the two sides of Camiguin Island given that these two areas had
different shorelines and experienced different weather patterns. To do this, the following
objectives were to be met:

Determine the coral community structure of different sites around Camiguin Island
Determine whether there is a pattern linking community structure and geographic location
 Materials and Methods

Study Area

A total of 12 sites around Camiguin Island were chosen for this study:
a. Sunken Cemetery, Bonbon, Catarman
b. Bugang, Sagay
c. Manuyog, Sagay
d. Balite, Sagay
e. Kibila, Guinsiliban
f. Cabuan, Guinsiliban
g. Benoni, Mahinog
h. San Roque, Mahinog
i. Binaliwan, Mahinog
j. Kabiling, Tupsan, Mambajao
k. Poblacion, Mambajao
l. Kuguita, Mambajao

Please refer to Error! Reference source not found.2 for the locations of the sites and their
positions around the islands. The Catarman and Sagay sites are on the southwestern side of
the island. All the other sites are in the northeastern side, except for Kibila, Guinsiliban,
which is located just to the north of the bay and is on the south-easternmost part of the
island.

Sampling procedure

The Line Intercept Transect (LIT) method (English et al, 1997) was used to obtain the
percentage covers of different lifeforms for each area, which was then used to represent
the community structure for the different study sites. Due to resource constraints, only a
single depth was sampled (11m).

Analysis of data

To determine whether groupings existed, cluster analysis was done in Minitab v13.20 with
average linkaging. Minitab uses dij = 1 - pij as its distance measure, where pij is the Pearson
product moment correlation between variables i and j (also called r). All of the basic life
forms given in the LIT method were used in the analysis except for the substrate data (S,
sand; RCK, rock; SI, silt), as inclusion of these did not yield any interpretable results.
 Results

Data for all of the sites surveyed indicate that the coral communities around the island are
best described by the term coral carpets, which are defined as more or less continuous
veneers of coral framework following the existing sea-floor morphology. They are not
distinctly three-dimensional and are therefore ecologically relatively uniform (Riegl & Piller,
1999). Riegl and Piller (2000) defined coral reefs as distinctly three-dimensional structures
producing a stronger ecological differentiation of animal and plant communities than coral
carpets and quoted, among others, the definition of Wainwright (1965) that in “...structural
coral reefs, corals are actively contributing by skeletal accumulation to the topographic
development of the reef...”. None of the coral communities around the island fit the
definition of a coral reef and instead fit more into the definition of coral carpet.

Results for the LIT survey (Figure ) clearly indicate that the coral community structure in
Kibila, Cantaan, Guinsiliban is distinctly different from all of the other survey sites. Of all
sites, it has the highest percentage cover of live hard coral (67.00%) and of acroporids
(30.15%, or 45.00% of the total hard coral cover), which is composed mostly of branching
Acropora. The remaining 55.00% of the hard coral cover (36.85% of the total) is composed
mostly of foliose coral. The values for the Kibila site are actually averages of two distinct
areas within the site, one dominated by branching Acropora and the other by foliose corals.
The community structures in these two areas can be classified as high-relief and low-relief
coral carpets respectively (Benzoni et al, 2003). The Acropora-dominated area may indicate
a transition from a coral carpet towards a coral reef as the loose volcanic substrate is
stabilized by the Acropora thickets (Piller and Riegl, 2003).

Insert figure 3 here.

The data presented in Figure 3 shows that the southwestern (SW) and northeastern (NE)
sides of the island differ in terms of community structure. The chart is divided visually and
geographically by the Kibila data (column e), which is located in the south of the island. The
four sites to the left of the Kibila data (Sunken, Bugang, Manuyog and Balite; columns a-d)
are in the southwestern (SW) side of the island. The sites to the right of the Kibila data
(Cabu-an to Kuguita; columns f-l) are in the island’s northeastern (NE) side. The
dendrogram (Figure 4) supports the distinctness of the two sides.

Insert figure 4 here.

The SW side had more algae (4.22%, standard deviation SD 2.16%) compared to NE (1.42%,
SD 0.66%), while the NE had more soft corals in relation to total live coral cover (45.38%, SD
12.68%) than did SW (12.86%, SD 5.51%) (Figure ). Total hard coral cover for the SW was
fair (32.83%, SD 13.84%) while that for the NE was poor (17.23%, SD 8.56%).
The SW side had more massive and encrusting corals (12.37%, SD 3.33% and 7.19 %, SD
3.84% respectively) compared to NE (3.36%, SD 1.99% and 1.36%, SD 1.33% respectively,
Table 1). The coral community structure of the NE side was variable and did not show any
clear pattern aside from the ones already mentioned. Average colony size for Kibila was
113.15cm, but for both SW and NE average colony sizes were about the same (24.81cm, SD
10.07cm and 25.30cm, SD 24.17cm respectively).

Discussion

The two sides of the island clearly show signs of wave stress induced by the monsoons, as is
shown by the low coral cover and small colony size in both sides, which are characteristic of
stressed areas (Storlazzi et al, 2002). The two sides differ, though, in the way this stress is
exhibited, implying other factors controlling community structure. The presence of a
greater number of streams in the NE compared to the SW, indicating larger amounts of
sediment load during rainy season, and the higher percentage cover of soft corals in the NE
suggests that sedimentation is an additional factor dictating community structure, given
that soft coral are better adapted to dealing with sedimentation (Schleyer & Celliers, 2003).
This is further supported by the findings of Fabricius & McCorry (2006) which show that
hard coral cover was most strongly related to water clarity, that macroalgal cover was
highest in areas with high wave action and high water clarity, and that crustose coralline
algae were negatively related to sedimentation. This indicates that the SW had lower
sediment loads than the NE, the SW having more hard coral cover, more macroalgal cover
and more crustose coralline algae than the NE (Error! Reference source not found.).

Table 1 Mean values for the lifeform categories of

Kibila and the southwestern SW and
northeastern NE sides.
SW NE
mean SD* Kibila mean SD*
DC 1.46% 2.33% 0.09% 0.46% 0.63%
DCA 7.92% 5.43% 1.27% 2.77% 2.52%
ACB 1.40% 0.97% 27.78% 2.68% 2.47%
ACD 0.06% 0.09% 0.00% 0.12% 0.26%
ACT 0.88% 1.01% 0.70% 0.36% 0.43%
CB 4.06% 2.00% 1.31% 5.20% 5.99%
CE 7.19% 3.84% 0.31% 1.36% 1.33%
CF 2.74% 2.31% 27.80% 2.06% 2.77%
CM 12.37% 3.33% 4.89% 3.36% 1.99%
CS 2.86% 2.70% 0.29% 1.48% 1.33%
CMR 1.11% 1.25% 0.21% 0.56% 0.75%
CME 0.11% 0.18% 0.00% 0.04% 0.09%
SC 4.84% 2.41% 31.18% 15.68% 11.09%
SP 1.48% 0.85% 0.21% 1.25% 0.54%
 OT 0.74% 0.55% 0.07% 1.99% 2.19%
AA 1.76% 1.07% 0.11% 0.63% 0.41%
CA 2.16% 1.52% 0.16% 0.37% 0.26%
HA 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.25%
MA 0.13% 0.08% 0.00% 0.14% 0.09%
TA 0.17% 0.29% 0.00% 0.17% 0.19%
S 23.08% 19.98% 1.70% 41.71% 25.11%
* Standard
R 17.63% 11.15% 1.91% 16.23% 15.20%
deviation values are for
SI 0.01% 0.03% 0.00% 1.17% 3.16%
sites within areas
and not RCK 5.79% 12.86% 0.00% 0.09% 0.17% for transects.

In contrast to the SW and NE sides, Kibila had high coral cover that was composed of
relatively delicate growth forms. This suggests that the southeastern tip of Camiguin
experiences low amounts of wave energy, since the direction of the wind, and therefore of
the wave energy, during monsoon seasons is tangential to its location. This should also have
been true to the northwestern tip of the island, but the slope in this part of the island is too
steep and has very loose substrate, meaning that coral communities would be unable to
obtain significant foothold in this area.

Recommendation

The sediment load of the water in both areas should be compared to support or refute the
findings of this paper. Both shallow and deep areas should be surveyed to get a better
picture of the coral community around the island. More sites should be surveyed so that
appropriate statistical tests can be made to determine whether the differences between
the sides are statistically significant.

Literature Cited

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biotic conditions. Coral Reefs 22:475-484
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English, S., C. Wilkinson, and V. Baker, eds. 1997. Survey Manual for Tropical Marine
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Schleyer, MH and L Celliers. 2003. Coral dominance at the reef-sediment interface in
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54(8):967-972
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 1. MERGE MAP INTO ONE FIGURE
2. CHANGE ALL FIGURE TO BLACK AND WHITE

Figure 1 Map showing location of Camiguin Island in relation to Visayas and Mindanao.

White sand

Figure 2 Image of Camiguin Island, with sandy areas marked by a double line, except for
the beach with white sand of coralline origin which is marked via a broken line. The rest
of the island has a stony shoreline. Letters indicate locations of study sites and correspond
to those of the listing of sites in the text.
 100%

90%

80% algae

70%
other inverts
60%

50% dead coral

40%
soft corals
30%

20% acroporids
10%
other hard
0%
corals
a b c d e f g h i j k l

Figure 3 Percentage cover of the benthic lifeforms for the different study sites. Similar
lifeform categories were lumped into a single category to simplify the chart. Letters
correspond to those of the listing of sites in the text.

Similarity
70.62

80.41

90.21

100.00
og n o ni
en li t
e
an
g
bil
a -a liw
a ci n it a l in
g
nk uy Ki bu bl a no Sa oqu gu bi
Su Ba Bu
g n na Be Ku Ka
Ma Ca Bi Po R

Sites

Figure 4 Dendrogram of the LIT results, excluding substrate data, for 12 sites around
Camiguin Island, Northern Mindanao, Philippines.