*2.1. Study Region and Sites*

The study was conducted on coral reefs at Gazi Bay, adjacent to Gazi Village (4◦26 S, 39◦30 E), a small fisher village located on the south coast of Kenya, about 45 km south of Mombasa [45] (Figure 1). The inner (northern) part of the bay is fringed by mangroves and seagrass meadows. The open sea lies to the south, while to the south-east, extending south from Chale Island, a submarine promontory known as Chale Reef supports the coral reef community that was the subject of this study. The reefs inside this lagoon are all relatively shallow, not exceeding 5 m in depth. The area is open to fishing and no form of protected area exists in the vicinity, so there has been increasing concern that fishing pressure is affecting the reefs. Although reef fish are known to be heavily exploited by local fishers, so far as it is known, reef invertebrates such as sea urchins are not exploited locally. Mean ambient air temperature and water temperature were both approximately 28 ◦C in October and November 2018 when the work was undertaken.

**Figure 1.** (**A**) Location of the study region on the southern Kenyan coast of East Africa; the scales indicate latitude south of the equator and longitude east of the prime meridian. Color on land indicates altitude. (**B**) Aerial image of Gazi Bay showing the location of the ten study sites: Chale 1 (C1), Chale 2 (C2), Doa Lower (DL), Doa Upper (DM), Kijamba Mkandi (KM), Kiziwa Kule (KZ), Kukuni (KK), Mikingamo (MG), Mikingamo 2 (ZM), Mwandamo (MD) (Satellite image © Google).
