Community Structure, Health Status and Environmental Drivers of Coral Reefs in Koh Seh Island of the Kep Archipelago, Cambodia

Coral reef ecosystems are home to diverse marine flora and fauna. However, these ecosystems are threatened by an array of environmental factors. Here, we investigated coral reef diversity, structure, and health status, and identified their key environmental drivers. Coral reef data was collected from Koh Seh Island located inside the Marine Fisheries Management Area in Kep archipelagos. We found that the reef covers largely comprised live corals (64%, mainly Porites and Tubinaria spp), followed by Zoanthids (15%) and sand/ rubble (15%). Based on Ward’s hierarchical cluster analysis, coral communities were grouped into three zones: East, South, and West zones. A higher coral diversity was found in zone East, although it was not significant. This could be due to fewer varied environmental factors. However, we found that Favites spp was the key indicator taxa for coral communities in zone East, which are mainly associated with oxygenated water, high pH levels and more sediments. Zone East is characterized by shallow water, active water currents and rather anthropogenic disturbances such as fishing and transportation. Interestingly, the coral reefs around Koh Seh were found with few dead corals and no disease encountered. This suggests that the protection effort co-enforced by the Marine Conservation Cambodia and the Marine Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture in Cambodia is effective. Taken as a whole, our study is a useful baseline for further study of benthic reefs and coral communities in the whole Kep Archipelago and surrounding areas.