A soil model that describes the geometry and physical and mechanical properties of superficial geological layers is important in studying site effect conditions due to amplification or long-period ground motion for seismic hazard evaluation. These conditions have been observed in the powerful earthquake that affected this region on December 26, 2004. The Krueng Aceh River delta is a fluvial sedimentary basin with an increasing...

Scientists and managers rely on indicator taxa such as coral and macroalgal cover to evaluate the effects of human disturbance on coral reefs, often assuming a universally positive relationship between local human disturbance and macroalgae. Despite evidence that macroalgae respond to local stressors in diverse ways, there have been few efforts to evaluate relationships between specific macroalgae taxa and local human‐driven d...

Corals create complex reef structures that provide both habitat and food for many fish species. Because of numerous natural and anthropogenic threats, many coral reefs are currently being degraded, endangering the fish assemblages they support. Coral reef restoration, an active ecological management tool, may help reverse some of the current trends in reef degradation through the transplantation of stony corals. Although resto...

Due to difficulties with surveying, cryptobenthic fishes are understudied, which limits assessments of their extinction risk. Using a novel survey method (a combination of underwater visual census and underwater biofluorescence census), we surveyed the densities of two gorgonian seafan-associated pygmy seahorses ( Hippocampus bargibanti and H. denise ) in 63 sites across Indonesia. Densities were low for both seahorses (≤ 0.4...

As ecosystems come under increasing anthropogenic pressure, rare species face the highest risk of extinction. Paradoxically, data necessary to evaluate the conservation status of rare species are often lacking because of the challenges of detecting species with low abundance. One group of fishes subject to this undersampling bias are those with cryptic body patterns. Twenty‐one percent of cryptic fish species assessed for thei...

Localized impacts, such as eutrophication and overfishing, have been identified as major threats to reefs worldwide, resulting in changes in coral reef community composition, from coral‐dominance to algal‐dominance. Herbivory by fishes is frequently cited as a key process structuring benthic community response to stressors. Here, we experimentally tested the capacity of herbivorous fishes to remove macroalgae along an onshore–...