The project evaluated the effects of coral bleaching and mortality on the coral reef communities, fish, and fisheries in the western Indian Ocean through a combination of field studies before and after the coral bleaching event in 1998, and the development of a historical database on benthic and fish communities. Investigators repeated fish community surveys in Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, and Reunion before 1998 to determine the changes and the effects of coral mortality, management, and remoteness on the changes in fish communities.
