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INTRODUCTION
The first studies on scleractinian corals on the Brazilian coast were done by Laborel (1965), who identified a considerable number of taxa, as well as zonation patterns through profiles of different reefs along the coast (Laborel, 1969a, b). Laborel also mentioned the impacts caused by the removal of numerous colonies of corals and hydrocorals, which were torn off and then burned to obtain lime (locally referred to as caieira) that was used to correct the soil pH for sugarcane plantations. This practice continued until the early 1970s. As a follow up to this research, the distributions of scleractinian and hydrocoral species on the Brazilian coast were characterized by Laborel (1970), who included some reefs on the urban coast of Maceió.
The geographical distribution of coral species on reef ecosystems in Brazilian States was recorded by Belém et al. (1986). The north-east coast of Brazil has the largest concentration of reef ecosystems, starting from the Manuel Luiz Banks in the State of Maranhão (Amaral et al., 2007) to the Abrolhos area on the south coast of the State of Bahia (Hetzel & Castro, 1994). The Brazilian coast has great importance because one genus and six coral species are endemic (Wood, 1983; Veron, 1995). The endemism of three Brazilian species of the genus Mussismilia was described by Pires et al. (1999) and also analysed by Nunes et al. (2008), who confirmed that this genus constitutes a monophyletic clade. The existing information about Brazilian reefs was considered sparse by Castro & Pires (2001), who looked at different areas of the north-east coast of Brazil, including an important area between the coast of the State of Rio Grande do Norte and extending south to the coast of Alagoas near the mouth of the San Francisco River. Shallow-water Scleractinia corals and Zoanthidea from the Coroa Grande reefs in the State of Pernambuco were characterized by Neves et al. (2002). At Itacolomi reefs on the south coast of Bahia, coral species were studied by Castro et al. (2006).
On the coast of Alagoas, a general characterization of coral reefs including some information about faunal diversity was presented by Sovierzoski & Correia (1995), and the geomorphological and ecological aspects were described by Correia...