A “quick and clean” photographic method for the description of coral reef habitats

Dumas, Pascal; Bertaud, Arnaud; Peignon, Christophe; Léopold, Marc; Pelletier, Dominique

doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2008.10.002

Cited by 75 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The most conspicuous effect of trampling in the present study was the dominance of vast, polished rock surfaces without any macrobenthic organisms in the impacted sites A similar pattern was found on reefs in New Caledonia, where the amount of bare rock tended to increase, with little live cover on some reef tops (Dumas et al 2009). Trampling has been shown to decrease the area of live cover by up to (Kay and Liddle 1989).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

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The Impact of Trampling on Reef Macrobenthos in Northeastern Brazil: How Effective are Current Conservation Strategies?

Santos

Burgos

Lira

et al. 2015

Environmental Management

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Tropical reefs are used for intensive tourism in various parts of the world. However, few studies have investigated the effect of regular trampling on these fragile ecosystems. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of different conservation strategies (open access, partial protection, and total long-term closure) on intertidal reef tops in Porto de Galinhas and Tamandaré, Pernambuco State, Brazil. Analysis of the macrobenthic community was performed with photo transects and image analysis (CPCe). Twenty-seven transects were surveyed from January to August 2012, in intensively impacted (I) open-access sites, in partially protected (P) sites with occasional, illegal trampling, and in a permanently closed (C) site. In I sites, total live cover was half the cover found in adjacent P sites. The area of bare rock averaged 53.6 and 25.0% in I and P sites, respectively. In the C site, the area of bare rock was only 19.8%. In I and P sites, macroalgae (Palisada perforata) were dominating, while in the C site, the zoanthid Zoanthus sociatus was most abundant. Shell-bearing vermetids (Petaloconchus varians) and bivalves (Isognomon bicolor) were more abundant at the C site, being possible bioindicators for areas with zero or little trampling. Twelve years of total closure produced near-pristine communities in the C site, dominated by zoanthids and fragile mollusks. This study showed that trampling has severe and long-lasting consequences for the structure of these ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…The photo transect method has been shown to be a useful tool that combines these advantages (Preskitt et al 2004;Dumas et al 2009), especially when used together with image analysis software for marine benthos, such as the CPCe package (Kohler and Gill 2006;Dumas et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Trampling on Reef Macrobenthos in Northeastern Brazil: How Effective are Current Conservation Strategies?

Santos

Burgos

Lira

et al. 2015

Environmental Management

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“…data). The description of coral reef habitats was assessed by a photographic method allowing quantitative estimation of percentage covers of different benthic categories (see Dumas et al 2009). The soft-bottom habitat was mainly characterised by the seagrasses Cymodocea serrulata and Halodule uninervis (~62%), green (genera Halimeda, Ulva, Codium) and brown (Padina sp., Sargassum spp., Turbinaria ornata) algae (~22%) and sand (~16%).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taxonomic resolution needed to describe invertebrate assemblages and to detect harvesting effects on coral reef ecosystems

Jimenez¹,

Dumas²,

Bigot³

et al. 2010

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Due to the cost and time required for species identification, the taxonomic sufficiency approach has been developed in order to detect community response to a disturbance, using high taxonomic level without great loss of information. This concept has been widely applied to pollution monitoring studies but rarely to other forms of perturbations such as anthropogenic exploitation of marine resources. We applied this method both to soft-bottom (seagrasses) and hard-bottom (coralline) tropical invertebrate communities in New Caledonia, South Pacific. The objective was to test whether intermediate or high taxonomic levels (genus, family, class or phylum instead of species) are good descriptors of community patterns and changes in assemblages related to harvesting, by comparing harvested to non-harvested areas for the 2 habitats. We pooled species data into coarser taxonomic categories (from genus to phylum) and showed that matrices at different taxonomic resolutions were highly correlated, particularly for genus and family level for both habitats. Differences between harvested and non-harvested locations appeared to be clearly habitat-dependent; for soft habitats, genus and family resolution allowed the detection of changes between exploited and protected assemblages, while for hard habitats, the separation between harvested and non-harvested areas was less clear at high taxonomic level and required species-level identifications. These results suggest that the taxonomic sufficiency approach could be carefully applied to poorly known environments. Family level is a good descriptor of community composition for tropical reef invertebrates. Detecting changes due to anthropogenic exploitation requires different taxonomic resolutions depending on the considered habitat. KEY WORDS: Taxonomic resolution · Data transformation · Tropical reef invertebrates · Harvesting effect · Marine protected areasResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher Mar Ecol Prog Ser 406: 211-222, 2010 patterns (Ellis 1985), in particular for disturbancerelated changes in benthic communities (Somerfield & Clarke 1995). This method uses coarser taxonomic levels when performing community comparisons, instead of species level. Several papers have addressed the validity of TS in marine ecosystems (Warwick 1988, Ferraro & Cole 1990, 1992, Gray et al. 1990, Warwick & Clarke 1993, Somerfield & Clarke 1995, Karakassis & Hatziyanni 2000. As well as a reduced need for taxonomic expertise, expected benefits include the removal of ecological redundancy attributed to the use of multiple species, when loss of information has no significant effect (Gray et al. 1988, Warwick 1988, 1993. Despite its increasing popularity on impact assessment, TS is still controversial (May 1990, Maurer 2000, in particular in the context of a global decline of taxonomic resources and species knowledge (Scheltema 1996, Boero 2001.Most studies using TS were in marine benthic habitats, including temperate soft-bottom benthic communities suc...

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“…On the north reef site however, because of the site's topography and it being exposed to the strong ocean waves making docking to be difficult, only two transects could be laid, both were at 3 m depth. Along each transect 1 m 2 quadrats were placed at every metre whereby visual estimates of coral cover in situ are recorded on an underwater writing slate [14,15], see Appendix 3. The quadrat frame will be divided into 100 (10cm x 10cm) smaller squares.…”

Section: Survey Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing the Current Cover and Abundance of Coral in Malindi Marine National Park

Tsofa¹,

Ngaruiya²

2015

JAMB

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A “quick and clean” photographic method for the description of coral reef habitats

Cited by 75 publications

References 22 publications

The Impact of Trampling on Reef Macrobenthos in Northeastern Brazil: How Effective are Current Conservation Strategies?

The Impact of Trampling on Reef Macrobenthos in Northeastern Brazil: How Effective are Current Conservation Strategies?

Taxonomic resolution needed to describe invertebrate assemblages and to detect harvesting effects on coral reef ecosystems

Establishing the Current Cover and Abundance of Coral in Malindi Marine National Park

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