National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified Random Surveys (StRS) of Coral Demography (Adult and Juvenile Corals) across the Mariana Archipelago since 2014

The data described here result from benthic coral demographic surveys for two life stages (juveniles, adults) across the Mariana archipelago since 2014. Juvenile colony surveys include morphology and size. Adult colony surveys record morphology, colony size, partial mortality in two categories - old dead and recent dead, cause of recent dead partial mortality, and non-lesion forming condition including bleaching and disease). In 2023 some segment observations were repeated for internal quality control; to filter for non-repeated data, be certain filter for TRANSECTNUM = 1.

A two-stage stratified random sampling (StRS) design was employed to survey the coral reef ecosystems throughout the U.S. Pacific regions. The survey domain encompassed the majority of the mapped area of reef and hard bottom habitats in the 0-30 m depth range. The stratification scheme included island, reef zone, and depth in all regions, as well as habitat structure type in the Mariana Archipelago. Sampling effort was allocated based on strata area and sites were randomly located within strata. Sites were surveyed using belt transects to collect juvenile and adult coral colony metrics. These data provide information on juvenile and adult coral abundance (density, proportion occurrence, and total colony abundance), size distribution, partial mortality, prevalence and abundance of recent mortality and cause, prevalence of disease and bleaching, and diversity.

The StRS design effectively reduces estimate variance through stratification using environmental covariates and by sampling more sites rather than sampling more transects at a site. Therefore, site-level estimates and site to site comparisons should be used with caution.

The data from the coral demographic surveys can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) details a long-term approach to provide an ecosystem perspective via monitoring climate, fish, benthic, and socioeconomic variables in a consistent and integrated manner. The NCRMP is intended to coordinate various Coral Reef Conservation Coral Reef Program (CRCP) biological, physical, and human dimensions activities into a cohesive NOAA-wide effort. Through the implementation of the NCRMP, NOAA will be able to clearly and concisely communicate results of national-scale monitoring to national, state, and territorial policy makers, resource managers, and the public on a periodic basis.

Updated as new data collected (2023). FGDC Import, mostly updated. AMD 2015-06-02, AMD updated 2015-06-15

The NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) details a long term approach to provide an ecosystem perspective via monitoring climate, fish, benthic, and socioeconomic variables in a consistent and integrated manner. The NCRMP coordinates various NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) biological, physical, and human dimensions activities into a cohesive NOAA-wide effort. Through the implementation of the NCRMP, NOAA is able to clearly and concisely communicate results of national-scale monitoring to national, state, and territorial policy makers, resource managers, and the public on a periodic basis.

NCRMP is a framework for conducting sustained observations of biological, climate, and socioeconomic indicators at 10 priority coral reefs across the U.S. and its territories. This integrated approach consolidates monitoring of coral reefs under a uniform method in the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. NCRMP is funded by the CRCP and supported by NOAA Fisheries, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), and many other partners. The PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at NOAA Fisheries is leading biological monitoring in the U.S. Pacific Islands Region.

The biological component of NCRMP in the Pacific provides a triennial 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). Innovative analysis techniques are then used to develop products that give fellow scientists, managers, decision makers and the public a better understanding of a region's resources and how they are changing over time.

Raw survey data includes metadata for each survey (where, when, who, area); site characteristics (depth, reef type, habitat); individual adult and juvenile coral observations identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible (usually species) including morphology, empirical size measurement, and all other recorded colony attributes including partial mortality and condition. The raw data also include individual observations of crustose coralline algae diseases and Alcyonarian disease recorded disease type and lesion size. Finally, the third type of raw data include presence of other Anthozoans (other cnidarians including Alcyonareans, Zoantharians, Corallimorpharians, and Antipatharians).

Adult Coral Observations Data Dictionary

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36173

Juvenile Coral Observations Data Dictionary

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36176

While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of the current state of the art, NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty.

Mariana Archipelago

Not applicable

Not applicable

NOAA Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

ESD welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. ESD has a very diverse set of field activities that generates large volumes of data using an array of data collection protocols.

The following recommendations are for your consideration as you use this data:

1) Data analyses should take all field exigencies into account. The most effective way to do this would be active collaboration with ESD principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by ESD, proper acknowledgement of both CREP and the individuals responsible for data collection is expected. Citing the DOI (if available) is preferred, a non-DOI example is listed below.

3) If you collect or generate data for the same study areas, ESD requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the ESD Data Management Team of any errors and discrepancies that are discovered during the course of using these data. They are further urged to bring to the attention of the Team all problems and difficulties encountered in using these data. This information is necessary in order to improve the collections and to facilitate more efficient and economical data processing and retrieval. The users are asked to supply copies of any missing data that may be located, and to provide information as to significant subsets and special aggregations of data that are developed in using the material provided.

Example citation:

"This publication makes use of data products provided by the Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP). The analysis and interpretations presented here are solely that of the current authors.”

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

None

Please cite NOAA Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) when using the data.

Example:

Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, 2023: National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified Random Surveys (StRS) of Coral Demography (Adult and Juvenile Corals) across the Mariana Archipelago since 2014, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36165.

None

None

PIFSC Oracle database view: V_NCEI_CORAL_OBS_E and V_NCEI_CORAL_OBS_F

This data should be assessed at the genus level due to variabilities in identifying at genus or species level.

Observations were made by experienced benthic survey personnel who have been trained, undergone a series of calibration surveys and coral taxon identification testing, and have met a set of minimum standards for colony assessment and taxon identification in each region. The accuracy of species and genus level identification was high. The lowest taxonomic level was species in the Main Hawaiian Islands and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. For the remaining three Pacific regions, the lowest taxonomic level of coral identification was genus except for a select number of species that were consistently identified to species by all divers conducting the surveys. The number of species may change for each survey year depending on the experience and training of the benthic divers. The list of coral species is included for each region and survey year. The total number of species was 28 coral species and 57 coral genera in 2014, 81 coral species and 48 coral genera in 2017, 54 coral species and 48 coral genera in 2022 in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. In other words, the individual records within each year may include many more species than encompassed by the region lists, however, these were not consistently identified across all survey years and regions so these records should be assessed at the genus level.

Handheld GPS units were used to locate random sites and mark site locations.

The taxon code AAAA is included where the segment was surveyed and no individual colonies were found in both the juvenile and adult colony records. These are true zeros. The value -9 is a placeholder or missing value for the fields: colony length, colony width (juveniles), extent, and severity.

Only shallow water (0 to 30 meter depth range) hard-bottom habitats are surveyed. The survey sites were randomly selected using a systematic process based on available habitat and bathymetric data. Although efforts are made to include broad spatial coverage of surveys at each island, weather conditions and other environmental constraints may have prevented the team from surveying exposed reef areas.

The same methods of data collection are used at each surveyed site. Periodic examination of the data is conducted throughout each mission to check for diver bias or other discrepancies.

Quality control of the data occurred at a few stages from data entry to data ingestion into the Oracle database. Observations, including species identification, are periodically checked during expeditions for consistency between and among divers. Data entry is usually conducted on the same day as the surveys using a data entry interface with several data controls employed, and are quality controlled by individual divers checking entry errors at a separate time. Following a mission, the data is then run through rigorous quality control checks by the data management team before the data are migrated to the Oracle database. The data is quality controlled against the physical data sheets following data entry. There are also several queries in the MS Access / Oracle database to flag errors based on pre-defined criteria. Given the size of the data set, there remains some possibility of typographical or other errors.

The data is captured in several locations: physical data sheets, MS Access cruise database (historically), and PIFSC Oracle database (currently). The physical data sheets are housed at PIFSC. The MS Access cruise database was regularly backed up by the cruise data manager while at sea. The PIFSC Oracle database is regularly backed up by PIFSC ITS. Currently the data lives only in the PIFSC Oracle Database.

The two-stage stratified random sampling (StRS) design and belt transect methodology for adult and juvenile corals, employed by the PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division since 2013.