中文摘要：

分布于相对高纬度的亚热带珊瑚礁和珊瑚群落,与热带珊瑚礁一样具有重要的研究价值,但实际上对相对高纬度珊瑚的研究相对稀少.在我国南海,相对高纬度的珊瑚礁和群落主要分布于广西涠洲岛、广东大亚湾、香港、福建东山、台湾等海域.近年来,一些学者利用生物、生态、地质、地球化学等研究方法,围绕“珊瑚群落演变与全球变化的关系”、“珊瑚对环境变化的高分辨率记录”等领域,在相对高纬度海域开展了一些研究工作.本文首先简略介绍相对高纬度珊瑚的研究意义,然后着重综述南海相对高纬度珊瑚对海洋环境变化的响应和高分辨率记录,以期通过综述前人的研究成果,为接下来的研究提出新问题、开创新思路提供借鉴.

英文摘要：

Scleractinian corals and coral reefs are not always restricted in tropical oceans.Many subtropical coral reefs and coral communities that exist near or beyond ＂normal＂ environmental limits are defined as ＂marginal＂ coral habitats.As global warming and frequent ENSO events cause the degradation of tropical reef ecosystems,debates are emerging on the potential for marginal coral habitats to serve as coral refuges.Besides,subtropical corals comparably have the function of high-resolution recording for climatic and other environmental changes.Therefore,non-reefal coral communities and coral reefs distributed in the subtropical,relatively high-latitude areas are as important in researches as their tropical counterparts in tropical oceans.Actually,however,researches associated with relatively high-latitude corals are relatively scarce.In the South China Sea,relatively high-latitude coral reefs and coral communities are mainly distributed in Weizhou Island （Guangxi Province）,Daya Bay （Guangdong Province）,Hong Kong,Dongshan,Taishan and Xingzi Islands （Fujian Province）,Taiwan and other waters.In recent years,some scholars used biological,ecological,geological,geochemical and other research methods,focusing on ＂the relationship between the evolution of coral communities and global changes＂ and ＂high-resolution coral records of environmental changes＂,to carry out some works in the relatively high-latitude waters,for example,increasing frequency and intensity in warm and cold-stresses can explain the observed decline in growth rate of Porites colonies in Weizhou Island,the Daya Bay Porites corals had higher concentrations of metals suggesting that acute （Fe and Mn） and chronic （Zn） heavy metal contamination has occurred locally over the past 32 years,total phosphorus in coral skeletons may be an efficient proxy for seawater phosphorus variations and associated phytoplankton dynamics in eutrophic environments,and a modified method for Sr/Ca-SST calibration was suggested in marginal coral ar