I've got a question that seems to have an obvious answer, but maybe not.

Is walking on a dead coral reef harmful?

The Belizean fisheries personnel are warning people to keep off the
exposed reef adjoining Tobacco Caye in spite of the fact that all the
stranded coral is entirely dead (tossed up during Hurricane Mitch in
1998) and has copious trash on it. When I inquired about the reasoning
behind this, I was informed that "there are micro-organisms on the
reef" that would be harmed by foot traffic.

I did manage to get some micros from the drift caught between the coral
slabs before the fisheries staff came along.

Does anyone know of any studies bearing on this in any manner?

David Kirsh

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