NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coral Benthic Assessment Data

doi:10.7289/v5vd6wts

NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coral Benthic Assessment Data

Citation

NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC), Groves S, Williams B (2024). NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coral Benthic Assessment Data. Version 1.7. United States Geological Survey. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt-obis.gbif.us/resource?r=noaa_ncrmp_benthic_assessment&v=1.7 https://doi.org/10.7289/v5vd6wts accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-12-14.

Description

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program (Coral Program) invests approximately $5 million of its annual operating budget to support the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) for biological, climate, and socioeconomic monitoring throughout the U.S. Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico coral reef areas. The monitoring program is unique for its national scale across a vast geographic area as well as its progressive inclusion of social science integrated with biophysical science. The effort provides a consistent flow of information about the status and trends of environmental conditions, natural resources, and the people and processes that interact with coral reef ecosystems. The overarching goal is to collect the scientific data needed to evaluate changing conditions of U.S. coral reef ecosystems, which are among the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth, providing billions of dollars in food, jobs, recreational opportunities, coastal protection, and other important ecosystem services. The program focuses on four monitoring themes: benthic community structure, fish community structure, climate impacts, and socioeconomic condition. Within the benthic theme, the core indicators include: coral species abundance and size structure, coral diversity, coral condition, benthic percent cover, key coral and mobile invertebrate species, and reef rugosity. Data provided here include hard coral species percent cover. The line point intercept method provides a measure of percent cover of biotic and abiotic components of the benthos in a stratified random sampling design in hardbottom and coral reef habitats. Individual data collections: Gulf of Mexico: https://doi.org/10.7289/v5vd6wts Florida: https://doi.org/10.7289/v5xw4h4z Puerto Rico: https://doi.org/10.7289/v5pg1q23 US Virgin Islands: https://doi.org/10.7289/v5ww7fqk

Sampling Description

Study Extent

The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) provides a biennial ecological characterization at a broad spatial scale of general reef condition for reef fishes, corals and benthic habitat (i.e., fish species composition/density/size, benthic cover, and coral density/size/condition).

Sampling

Data collection occurs at stratified random sites where the sampling domain for each region (e.g., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary [FGBNMS]) is partitioned by habitat type and depth, sub-regional location (e.g., along-shelf position) and management zone. NCRMP will provide broader geographic context to supplement local monitoring efforts and studies of tropical reef ecosystems. Line point-intercept (LPI) sampling provides benthic cover estimates for ecologically important cover types/groups (e.g., macroalgae, turf algae, crustose coralline algae, corals, sponges, sand/sediment, etc.). This method is complementary to the NCRMP coral demographics sampling method that collects detailed information on scleractinian corals, including density, size and condition (percent mortality and bleaching) measurements. The goal of these surveys is to provide a quantification of percent cover of biotic and abiotic benthic components, using the LPI method in a stratified random sampling design in hardbottom and coral reef habitats in the U.S. Caribbean (U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico) and FGBNMS. Surveys are concurrent with and along the same transect as fish surveys.

Quality Control

For details see the Line Point-Intercept (LPI) Survey Protocol for the U.S. Caribbean and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/archive/arc0091/0151818/2.2/data/0-data/NCRMP_FGB_2013-2015_Benthics/Data_Documentation/Protocols/NCRMP_Caribbean-GoM_Protocols_2015/NCRMP_LinePointIntercept_Protocol_Caribbean_FINAL_June_2015.pdf

Method steps

For details see the Line Point-Intercept (LPI) Survey Protocol for the U.S. Caribbean and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/archive/arc0091/0151818/2.2/data/0-data/NCRMP_FGB_2013-2015_Benthics/Data_Documentation/Protocols/NCRMP_Caribbean-GoM_Protocols_2015/NCRMP_LinePointIntercept_Protocol_Caribbean_FINAL_June_2015.pdf

Additional info

marine, harvested by OBIS

Taxonomic Coverages

Reef corals

Cnidaria
rank: phylum

Geographic Coverages

Portions of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

Bibliographic Citations

Contacts

originator
NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
US
homepage: https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/

originator
NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC)
US
homepage: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/about/southeast-fisheries-science-center

Sarah Groves
metadata author
NOAA NCCOS / CSS
email: sarah.groves@noaa.gov

Bethany Williams
metadata author
NOAA NCCOS / CSS
email: bethany.williams@noaa.gov
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5722-8386

Abby Benson
publisher
position: Biologist
U.S. Geological Survey
email: albenson@usgs.gov
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4391-107X

Sarah Groves
processor
NOAA NCCOS / CSS
email: sarah.groves@noaa.gov

Bethany Williams
processor
NOAA NCCOS / CSS
email: bethany.williams@noaa.gov
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5722-8386

Stephen Formel
processor
position: Biologist
U.S. Geological Survey
email: sformel@usgs.gov
userId: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7418-1244

Erica Towle
distributor
position: National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coordinator
National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP)
email: erica.towle@noaa.gov
userId: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dVFoIN8AAAAJ

Erica Towle
administrative point of contact
position: National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coordinator
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Conservation Program
email: erica.towle@noaa.gov