Data Management Plan

The benthic cover data described here result from benthic photo-quadrat surveys conducted by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) in hard bottom shallow water (< 15 m) habitats in Timor-Leste during reef fish surveys surveys at 150 sites that were selected using a stratified random sampling design in June 2013, and along transects at fixed climate survey sites in September-October 2014 (10 sites and 8 sites, respectively).

Climate sites were established by CREP to establish ecological baselines for climate change by measuring multiple features of the coral reef environment (in addition to the data described herein) over time. The reef fish surveys were conducted to generate baseline data on the nearshore coral reef fish assemblages and associated benthic communities around Timor-Leste's north coast and Atauro Island.

Percent benthic cover for each site is estimated from a photo-transect (30 photographs, taken at 1-m intervals, 10+ points analyzed per photograph using Coral Point Count with Extensions). NA values represent situations where images were either not gathered or not analyzed.

These benthic cover data for Timor-Leste provide an estimate of the benthic community composition at each survey site, and give context to the results from the other survey components. The benthic images, and the associated reef fish survey data and parameters measured to establish ecological baselines for climate change are documented separately. The data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

Extent of photo-quadrat surveys conducted by NOAA CREP in Timor-Leste in 2013 and 2014.

Lineage Statement:
The benthic photoquadrat survey methodology, employed by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) since 2013. Benthic imagery is collected at survey sites and is analyzed using Coral Point Count with Excel Extentions (CPCe) to derive benthic cover values.

Process Steps:

• The benthic photoquadrat imagery were analyzed using Coral Point Count with Excel extensions (CPCe; Kohler and Gill 2006) software. CPCe assigns 10 random points per photo and the benthic elements falling directly underneath each point is identified to two functional group levels: Tier 1 (e.g. hard coral, soft coral, macroalgae, turf algae, etc.) and Tier 2 (e.g. Hard coral by morphology = massive, branching, foliose, encrusting, etc.; Macroalgae = upright macroalgae, encrusting macroalgae, bluegreen macroalgae, and Halimeda, etc.). The detailed list of each functional group level or tier is included in the benthic image analysis classification scheme. (Citation: PIFSC. 2017. Interdisciplinary baseline ecosystem assessment surveys to inform ecosystem-based management planning in Timor-Leste: Final Report. NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, PIFSC Special Publication, SP-17-02, 234p.)
• Raw survey data includes unique image name and individual point observations identified at two functional group levels of benthic cover with the corresponding physical data which reflect the description of the site. The physical data for all records includes the following: region, island, site, date (day, month, year), latitude (dd), longitude (dd), reef zone, habitat type, depth category, minimum depth and maximum depth.

Quality control is enforced by means of point-to-point, inter-observer calibration exercises that are conducted before each image analysis production series. Training modules and standard operating procedures have also been developed and documented to ensure improved performance and consistent imagery analysis results produced by multiple analysts.

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

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.