Representation and complementarity of the long‐term coral monitoring on the Great Barrier Reef

Mellin, Camille; Peterson, Erin E.; Puotinen, Marji; Schaffelke, Britta

doi:10.1002/eap.2122

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…10A), community composition and demographic structure, and potential for coral recovery (incorporating exposure to CoTS and loose coral rubble) to complement reef monitoring. This is especially important considering that existing monitoring only represents ∼40% only of the environmental regimes of the GBR (Mellin et al 2020). While the present model informs about recent trends and status of unmonitored reef areas (∼96% of the 3,806 reefs between 2008–2020), it can also help designing more representative and efficient coral and CoTS surveillance programs in support of reef management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative impacts across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: A mechanistic evaluation

Bozec

Hock

Mason

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Cumulative impacts assessments on marine ecosystems have been hindered by the difficulty of collecting environmental data and identifying drivers of community dynamics beyond local scales. On coral reefs, an additional challenge is to disentangle the relative influence of multiple drivers that operate at different stages of coral ontogeny. We integrated coral life history, population dynamics and spatially-explicit environmental drivers to assess the relative and cumulative impacts of multiple stressors across 2,300 km of the world's largest coral reef ecosystem, Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Using literature data, we characterized relationships between coral life history processes (reproduction, larval dispersal, recruitment, growth and mortality) and environmental variables. We then simulated coral demographics and stressor impacts at the organism (coral colony) level on >3,800 individual reefs linked by larval connectivity, and exposed to temporally- and spatially-realistic regimes of acute (crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, cyclones and mass coral bleaching) and chronic (water quality) stressors. Model simulations produced a credible reconstruction of recent (2008-2020) coral trajectories consistent with monitoring observations, while estimating the impacts of each stressor at reef and regional scales. Overall, corals declined by one third across the GBR, from an average ~29% to ~19% hard coral cover. By 2020, less than 20% of the GBR had coral cover higher than 30%. Global annual rates of coral mortality were driven by bleaching (48%) ahead of cyclones (41%) and starfish predation (11%). Beyond the reconstructed status and trends, the model enabled the emergence of complex interactions that compound the effects of multiple stressors while promoting a mechanistic understanding of coral cover dynamics. Drivers of coral cover growth were identified; notably, water quality (suspended sediments) was estimated to delay recovery for at least 25% of inshore reefs. Standardized rates of coral loss and recovery allowed the integration of all cumulative impacts to determine the equilibrium cover for each reef. This metric, combined with maps of impacts, recovery potential, water quality thresholds and reef state metrics, facilitates strategic spatial planning and resilience-based management across the GBR.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative impacts across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: A mechanistic evaluation

Bozec

Hock

Mason

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…An increased focus on monitoring coral reefs followed the first global coral bleaching event in 1998, given the unprecedented scale and severity of its impacts (Houk & Van Woesik, 2013). Coral reefs have since been the subject of some of the most extensive monitoring in the marine environment (Mellin et al, 2020). Many coral reef monitoring programs involve recording the percent cover of corals and other benthic groups from photographs obtained by scuba divers, usually collected along a transect line, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, changes in methods increase variability in data and can compromise long-term data series (Bicknell et al, 2016;Durden et al, 2016). Thus, there is ongoing discussion regarding the best methods for coral reef monitoring (Brown et al, 2004;Houk & Van Woesik, 2013;Lam et al, 2006;Leujak & Ormond, 2007;Mellin et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As demonstrated by the evolution from in situ visual census to image-capture in marine monitoring in the mid-1990s (Carleton & Done, 1995), new survey methods will inevitably be introduced into coral reef monitoring programs as technology evolves. Choice of method and survey design have important implications for the effectiveness, cost and interpretation of monitoring efforts (Boavida et al, 2016;Houk & Van Woesik, 2013;Jokiel et al, 2015;Mellin et al, 2020). The method employed should reflect the broader aims of the monitoring program while also considering the scale and taxonomic resolution of the information required, the repeatability of a method and environmental conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A quantitative comparison of towed-camera and diver-camera transects for monitoring coral reefs

Cresswell

Ryan

Heyward

et al. 2021

PeerJ

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Novel tools and methods for monitoring marine environments can improve efficiency but must not compromise long-term data records. Quantitative comparisons between new and existing methods are therefore required to assess their compatibility for monitoring. Monitoring of shallow water coral reefs is typically conducted using diver-based collection of benthic images along transects. Diverless systems for obtaining underwater images (e.g. towed-cameras, remotely operated vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles) are increasingly used for mapping coral reefs. Of these imaging platforms, towed-cameras offer a practical, low cost and efficient method for surveys but their utility for repeated measures in monitoring studies has not been tested. We quantitatively compare a towed-camera approach to repeated surveys of shallow water coral reef benthic assemblages on fixed transects, relative to benchmark data from diver photo-transects. Differences in the percent cover detected by the two methods was partly explained by differences in the morphology of benthic groups. The reef habitat and physical descriptors of the site—slope, depth and structural complexity—also influenced the comparability of data, with differences between the tow-camera and the diver data increasing with structural complexity and slope. Differences between the methods decreased when a greater number of images were collected per tow-camera transect. We attribute lower image quality (variable perspective, exposure and focal distance) and lower spatial accuracy and precision of the towed-camera transects as the key reasons for differences in the data from the two methods and suggest changes to the sampling design to improve the application of tow-cameras to monitoring.

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“…While patterns of species diversity and ecosystem processes are relatively well studied in shallow coral reef ecosystems [1][2][3], there are fewer detailed studies of cold-water coral ecosystems [4][5][6][7]. Yet these ecosystems play a similar ecological role as their shallow counterparts by serving as the foundation for, and facilitating ecological processes that sustain, high biodiversity communities [8][9][10][11] and thus providing vital ecosystem services [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep coral habitats of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska

2020

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Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (GBNPP) in Southeast Alaska is a system of glaciated fjords with a unique and recent history of deglaciation. As such, it can serve as a natural laboratory for studying patterns of distribution in marine communities with proximity to glacial influence. In order to examine the changes in fjord-based coral communities, underwater photo-quadrats were collected during multipurpose dives with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in March of 2016. Ten sites were chosen to represent the geochronological and oceanographic gradients present in GBNPP. Each site was surveyed vertically between 100 and 420 meters depth and photo-quadrats were extracted from the video strip transects for analysis. The ROV was equipped with onboard CTD which recorded environmental data (temperature and salinity), in order to confirm the uniformity of these characteristics at depth across the fjords. The percent cover and diversity of species were lowest near the glaciated heads of the fjords and highest in the Central Channel and at the mouths of the fjords. Diversity is highest where characteristics such as low sedimentation and increased tidal currents are predominant. The diverse communities at the mouths of the fjords and in the Central Channel were dominated by large colonies of the Red Tree Coral, Primnoa pacifica, as well as sponges, brachiopods, multiple species of cnidarians, echinoderms, molluscs and arthropods. The communities at the heads of the fjords were heavily dominated by pioneering species such as brachiopoda, hydrozoan turf, the encrusting stoloniferan coral Sarcodyction incrustans, and smaller colonies of P. pacifica. This research documents a gradient of species dominance from the Central Channel to the heads of the glaciated fjords, which is hypothesized to be driven by a combination of physical and biological factors such as glacial sedimentation, nutrient availability, larval dispersal, and competition.

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Representation and complementarity of the long‐term coral monitoring on the Great Barrier Reef

Cited by 21 publications

References 53 publications

Cumulative impacts across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: A mechanistic evaluation

Cumulative impacts across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: A mechanistic evaluation

A quantitative comparison of towed-camera and diver-camera transects for monitoring coral reefs

Deep coral habitats of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska

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