Coral Reef Monitoring Protocol

It refers to a component of the ecosystem, physical or biological, that has an effect on other components of the ecosystem.

• Variable

• Parameters

• Abundance

• Benthic

Why do we use indicators like coral cover and number of starfish when checking coral reefs?

• To know the age of the reef

• To find out how deep the water is

• To check if the reef is healthy or damaged

• To count how many fish are there

What is an example of an indicator used to check coral reef health?

• Number of tourists

• Size of fishing boats

• Percent hard coral cover

• Amount of sunlight

Which of the following are examples of economic indicators?

• Sea stars and jellyfish

• Coral rubble and algae

• Conch, giant clams, and trochus shells

• Sea grass and mangroves

What level of monitoring relies on using lesser-trained people (volunteers and community members) with some scientific supervision to gather broad-scale data at lower resolution.

• Level 1 – Community monitoring

• Level 2 - Management monitoring

• Level 3 - Research monitoring

What Levels of Monitoring relies on staff with scientific training (tertiary or through work experience), e.g. environment or fisheries government staff, to gather medium-scale data at medium to high resolution.

• Level 1 - Community monitoring

• Level 2 - Management monitoring

• Level 3 - Research monitoring

The following are advantages of research monitoring except for?

• Accurate and precise data collection

• Data are most reliable

• Collect high detail data, which are used by scientists to understand trends or processes at a specific site

• Expensive. Many governments cannot afford to employ scientists to survey large areas of reef

What is the critical step in designing a monitoring program and will depend upon the objectives?

• Data collection

• Site selection

• Species identification

• Report writing

The actual sites you choose for the surveys should be _____________________ of the area of interest.

• Representative

• Same habitat

• Monitoring

• Size

What type of information expresses the subject as a number, such as 32% coral cover, and is standardized for comparison?

• Qualitative information

• Quantitative information

• Descriptive information

• Observational information