3.2. Species-specific responses to reef distance
The abundance of all 30 fish species (PERMANOVA; multivariate
comparisons) varied significantly with reef distance (F3, 35= 2.40,
Pb0.01) and no significant sampling treatment× reef-distance interaction
was found (F6, 35= 1.29, P= 0.14). Such results indicated that
changes in fish assemblages with reef distance were not affected by
the period or sampling technique. PERMANOVA's pair-wise, post-hoc
tests revealed that the fish assemblages at 0 m and 50 m from the
reefs were significantly more abundant (P b0.01 and P b0.05,
respectively) than those located 300 m away.