Schaffelke et al., 2004:

"Extensive blooms of benthic colonial chrysophyte algae have recently been observed on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The main bloom-forming species is Chrysocystis fragilis (Chrysophyta, Pelagophyceae), a new record for the GBR region. Chrysophaeum taylori, which was first recorded in the 1980s, is present in low abundances. C. fragilis was described from Guam (Lobban et al. 1995) and has been also found at Christmas and Cocos Islands (A. Ayling, personal observations), Palau and Pohnpei (C. Lobban, University of Guam, personal communications) and Hawaii (J. Smith, University of Hawaii, personal communications). C. fragilis is very delicate and readily disintegrates when disturbed. C. fragilis colonies are formed by single cells within an amorphous mucus matrix, forming macroscopic tube-like colonies ~2–30 cm long and ~0.2–1 cm wide of a characteristic golden-brown colour. The matrix was often colonised by diatoms and other microalgae.

In 2003/2004, C. fragilis was recorded on a number of GBR reefs from latitude 17 to 23.5°S. It colonised a variety of substrata in water depths from 3 to at least 20 m. On a few reefs C. fragilis blooms were observed, blanketing large areas of dead standing coral substratum (Fig. 1). Reefs with abundant C. fragilis usually had low coral cover due to previous disturbances by crown-of-thorns starfish predation and/or bleaching." 

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Citation and/or URL

 Schaffelke, B., Heimann, K., Marshall, P.A. and Ayling, A.M., 2004, 'Blooms of Chrysocystis fragilis on the Great Barrier Reef', Coral Reefs 23(4): 514

Spatial Coverage

Latitude 17-23.5^o S

Temporal Coverage

2003/4

Update Frequency

Not applicable 

Other Information

None