The ascidian Trididemnum solidum competes
for space on Caribbean reefs and is capable of overgrowing
live scleractinian corals. From 2006 to 2009, we monitored
over 30,000 coral colonies and quantified competitive
interactions with this ascidian at four reef sites along the
Mexican Caribbean. The total number of competitive
interactions increased in time, but the mean percentage of
coral colonies involved in interactions remained lower than
1% in all reefs. Bottom cover by T. solidum was also low
(mean \0.5%) in all reef sites in all sampling years. We
conclude that during the temporal scope of our study, the
overall potential effect of T. solidum on the dynamics of
Mexican Caribbean coral populations was minimal.