Sheppard,-C.R.C. Similar trends, different causes: Responses of corals to stressed environments in Arabian Seas. PROCEEDINGS-OF-THE-SIXTH-INTERNATIONAL-CORAL-REEF- SYMPOSIUM,-TOWNSVILLE,-AUSTRALIA,-8th-12th-AUGUST-1988.- VOLUME-3:-CONTRIBUTED-PAPERS-MINI-SYMPOSIUM-11-16-TO-22. Choat,-J.H.;Barnes,-D.;Borowitzka,-M.A.;Coll,- J.C.;Davies,-P.J.;Flood,-P.;Hatcher,-B.G.;Hopley,-D.;et- al.-eds.. 1988. pp. 297-302. In the Red Sea, Gulf and Arabian Sea, several severe environments stress coral communities and ultimately extinguish them. Stressed reef slope conditions arise from sedimentation, mangroves, dune incursion, and raised temperature and salinity. Stressed communities are firstly, high cover, near- monogeneric ones of Acropora then Porites, ending as those of poor cover on fossil or calcareous algal reefs dominated by large phaeophytes.