As an example he points to a project that he initiated in the early 1990s along with National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium researcher Fan Tung-yung in which they began monitoring coral communities off Mao'ao on the northeast coast. The first three to five years revealed a stable community, but recent reports show that it has been almost entirely replaced by algal species as a result of rapid human encroachment in the area.
戴昌鳳舉例，1990 年代初期，他和現任海生館研究員樊同雲一起研究東北角「卯澳」的珊瑚群聚，以 3 ∼ 5 年的期間看是穩定平衡，但因受東北角海岸快速開發的影響，近年調查時發現，當年石珊瑚群聚幾乎已被藻類取代。