Eventually, discrete events will disrupt portions of the benthos community. 
Strong onshore winds rip the benthic algae loose from the bottom, and some of 
that material is swept from the system. The filter feeding animals and other 
detritivores will largely survive until they are killed by fresh water and/or 
sediment inputs, although some will starve from lowered planktonic food 
availability. 
The benthos community of the southeast sector is dramatically different 
from the reef community which was once found there, although historical data 
are insufficient to document the gain or loss of taxa. Corals, which once 
dominated the reefs there, as elsewhere in the bay, survive as isolated 
specimens. Benthic algal biomass locally exceeds pre-sewage biomass and shows 
large temporal fluctuation. The reef community structure has been obliterated. 
Benthos recovery will be back towards a coral-dominated, low-algal biomass 
community only if there is adequate substratum for coral settlement; if the 
periods between the interruptions by freshwater runoff are sufficient for 
community succession to proceed to the successful recruitment of corals; and 
if sediment nutrient release cannot maintain the high algal biomass. Banner (1) 
reported some coral recovery, in areas not otherwise significantly stressed, 
within three years of the 1965 “freshwater kill” previously mentioned. A 
return to coral dominance, if it ever occurs, will probably take one or more 
decades; shorter-term recovery patterns should indicate the direction of 
environmental rebound. 
SUMMARY 
1. The present biological structure of Kaneohe Bay may be related to the 
combination of catastrophic lethal events (runoff) and chronic biological 
stimulation (sewage discharge). 
2. The nutrient deposition as particulate materials in bay sediments and 
subsequent release from those sediments is an important and previously 
undocumented part of the internal nutrient cycle within the bay. This efficient 
cycle allows very little nutrient loss from the bay and comprises an 
instantaneous nutrient delivery to the water column comparable in magnitude 
to the sewage input. Of course, the sediment release contrasts with the sewage 
input in being a diffuse, rather than a point-source, delivery of nutrients to the 
water column. 
3. The planktonic portion of the biota can respond rapidly to alteration of 
environmental regimes, by virtue of advective exchange with more nearly 
oligotrophic waters in the absence of the point-source sewage discharge. The 
plankton of the bay retain relatively minor vestiges of the 1965 freshwater kill. 
The plankton of the southeast sector should shift rapidly to a post-sewer 
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