Cá rạn san hô, với rất ít ngoại lệ, có sinh vật phù du trứng, ấu trùng, và trước khi giải quyết vị thành niên giai đoạn khác nhau trong thời gian từ vài tuần đến vài tháng. Hầu hết các rạn san hô cá sinh ra trứng nổi có tiềm năng được vận chuyển nhiều km gió bề mặt dòng trước khi nở thành ấu trùng có khả năng ảnh hưởng của họ phát tán. Những người khác đẻ trứng trong tổ bảo vệ với việc phát hành tiếp theo vào nước cột của ấu trùng tích cực bơi lội hoặc người chưa thành. | 13 The Effects of Water Flow around Coral Reefs on the Distribution of Pre-Settlement Fish Great Barrier Reef Australia John H. Carleton Richard Brinkman and Peter J. Doherty CONTENTS Materials and Helix Reef Bowden Reef Helix Reef Bowden Reef Fish Distribution and Dispersion INTRODUCTION Coral reef fish with very few exceptions have planktonic egg larvae and pre-set-tlement juvenile stages that vary in duration from weeks to months. Most reef fish spawn buoyant eggs that have the potential to be transported many kilometers in wind-driven surface currents before hatching into larvae capable of influencing their dispersal. Others lay eggs in protected nests with the subsequent release to the water column of actively swimming larvae or juveniles thus minimizing the time their offspring are exposed to the vagaries of ocean or shelf currents and enhancing the 209 2001 by CRC Press LLC 210 Oceanographic Processes of Coral Reefs chances of recruitment back to their natal reef Jones et al. 1999 . In either case the problem facing propagules expatriated from coral reefs is one of population closure of finding shallow coral reef habitat suitable for the juvenile adult phases in their life cycle. We now know that the physical chemical and biological composition of the water mass in the immediate vicinity of coral reefs is affected by fine-scale current patterns generated through the interaction of reef topography with prevailing far-field currents see Hamner Wolanski 1988 for review . Coral reefs growing to within a few meters of the sea surface act as barriers to the flow of oceanic or shelf currents. As currents approach they must diverge to flow around the reef edges creating a zone of relatively stationary water immediately upstream which becomes enriched with nutrients and plankton. At the reef face
