Non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) plot of Millepora platyphylla population structure across the five surveyed habitats.

Different shapes indicate the three transects for each habitat and grey lines show clusters given by dendogram based on Eucledian distance of 4 at a stress level of 0.09. The surimposed red lines define the Eucledian distance coefficient on normalized data based on Spearman ranking, with each vector having lengths ≥ 0.4: density, cover, distribution index, mean neighborhood distance, mean height and size of adults, and proportion of recruits (< 1 cm²), juveniles (1–20 cm²) and adults (> 20 cm²). The second transect of the fringing reef is shown as a single group mostly related to a small population size (i.e. 27 colonies, S2 Table).