Sampling was conducted during the daytime in the summer–spring
months (December 2011–April 2012) in rocky shores
of three islands off the coast of Santa Catarina Island (Brazil):
Campeche Island, Xavier Island, and Arvoredo Island (Fig. 1). The
annual average sea surface temperature in these rocky reefs is
22.5 °C, ranging from 17 °C in the winter to 27 °C in the summer
(PO.DAAC, 2015). The second sampling campaign was conducted
in five sites during the spring of November 2012 at Parque Municipal
Marinho do Recife de Fora (herein referred to as Recife de
Fora), a 29 km2
patch reef area that lies 5 km offshore in south of
Bahia (Brazil) (Seoane et al., 2012). Recife de Fora is composed by
biogenic reefs, with rounded formations that do not surpass 20 m
depths (Laborel, 1969), and sea surface temperature varies from
24° to 28 °C in that region (Ghisolfi et al., 2015).