NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Coral Demographic 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 Demographic Data. Version 1.11. United States Geological Survey. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt-obis.gbif.us/resource?r=noaa_ncrmp_demographic_data&v=1.11 https://doi.org/10.7289/v5vd6wts accessed via GBIF.org on 2024-08-24.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 species abundance. The coral demographics protocol provides more detailed and species-specific insight (‘signal magnitude’) for coral populations. 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/v5ww7fqkSampling Description
Study Extent
The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP)’s biological sampling provides a biennial ecological characterization of general reef condition for reef fishes, corals, and benthic habitat (i.e., fish species composition, density, and size; coral species composition, density, size, condition; and benthic community cover) at a broad spatial scale (NCRMP 2021). In the U.S. Atlantic, NCRMP biological sampling includes coral reef and hardbottom habitats in Florida, Flower Garden Banks, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). NCRMP conducts surveys at stratified random sites where the sampling domain for each geographic region is partitioned by habitat type and depth, sub-regional location (e.g., along-shelf position), and management zone.Sampling
NCRMP Coral Demographic surveys are designed to collect and report data on scleractinian coral species composition, density, size, abundance, and specific parameters of condition (% live and dead, bleaching, disease) of non-juvenile scleractinian corals (≥4 cm maximum diameter), and overall species diversity (all scleractinian corals). The survey also includes data collection per colony within the survey area for percent of colony with recent mortality (i.e., dead white skeleton), percent of old mortality, bleaching (i.e., total bleaching of the entire colony, partial bleaching of the colony, or paling), coral disease (present or absent), and whether the colony is identifiable as a restored/outplanted coral (i.e., No, Yes, Unknown). Exact identification or precise designations of specific coral diseases (e.g., named disease types) are not recorded because (1) low temporal resolution of the NCRMP’s biennial sampling may not coincide with episodic disease outbreaks, and (2) visual symptoms of various coral diseases are often indistinguishable in the field and can require collection of tissue samples for accurate disease identification. At each NCRMP Benthic survey site, a single Coral Demographics Survey is conducted within a 10 x 1m belt transect area. A NCRMP Benthic survey includes one Coral Demographics survey and one Benthic Community Assessment survey (CRCP 2022a). NCRMP Benthic surveys may occur at all or a subset of NCRMP Fish surveys. Benthic surveys may be conducted concurrently with co-located NCRMP Fish surveys (CRCP 2022b), or Benthic and Fish surveys may occur at separate field visits.Quality Control
For details see the NCRMP Coral Demographics Survey Field Protocols: https://doi.org/10.25923/9a1r-m911Method steps
- For details see the NCRMP Coral Demographics Survey Field Protocols: https://doi.org/10.25923/9a1r-m911
Additional info
marine, harvested by OBISTaxonomic Coverages
Reef corals
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Cnidariarank: phylum
Geographic Coverages
Portions of the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
Bibliographic Citations
- CRCP. 2022. National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) Coral Demographics Survey Field Protocols for U.S. Atlantic: Florida, Flower Garden Banks, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands. 2022. NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program. 27 pp. - doi: 10.25923/9a1r-m911
Contacts
originatorNOAA 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