Species diversity of the coral reef - a note on the role of predation and of adjacent habitats.

Predation pressure exerted upon organisms of the reef habitat is positively correlated with the availability of surrounding non- reef habitats. Because the high level of predation maintains high species diversity within the reef, the importance of non-reef habitats is not just in providing, through predation, an influx of energy of the coral reef, but by reinforcing, through predation, the reef's own species diversity.-from Authors