Effectiveness of community and volunteer based coral reef monitoring in Cambodia

Abstract

1. Globally, coral reef monitoring programmes conducted by volunteer-based organizations or local communities have the potential to collect large quantities of marine data at low cost. However, many scientists remain sceptical about the ability of these programmes to detect changes in marine systems when compared with professional techniques.2. A limited number of studies have assessed the efficacy and validity of volunteer-based monitoring, and even fewer have assessed community-based methods.3. This study in Cambodia investigated the ability of surveyors of different levels of experience to conduct underwater surveys using a simple coral reef methodology. Surveyors were assigned to four experience categories and conducted a series of six 20 × 5 m belt transects using five benthic indicator species. 4. Results show decreased variation in marine community assessments with increasing experience, indicating that experience, rather than cultural background, influences survey ability. This suggests that locally based programmes can fill gaps in knowledge with suitable ongoing training and assessment.

Voluntary scuba diving as a method for monitoring invasive exotic marine species

“…Thus, our results suggest that citizen science projects that intend to use the partnership of volunteer divers to observe invasive exotic species should prioritize the selection of divers who already have a certain level of diving experience. The positive relationship between the number of species identified according to the highest level of experience of divers has also been observed in other studies (Savage et al 2016). Some authors suggest that long dives (> 60 minutes) may impair the identification of species, as factors such as cold, anxiety, stress and fatigue, for example, are related to the significant reduction in the diver's performance (Goffredo et al 2010).…”