Switching between standard coral reef benthic monitoring protocols is complicated: proof of concept.

ABSTRACT: Monitoring the state of coral reefs is necessary to identify drivers of change and assess effectiveness of management actions. There are several widely-used survey methods, each of which is likely to exhibit different biases that should be quantified if the purpose is to combine datasets obtained via different survey methods. The latter is a particularly important consideration when switching methodologies in long-term monitoring programs and is highly relevant to the Caribbean today. This is because of the continuing need for regionally comparable coral reef monitoring datasets and the fact that the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN)-Caribbean node is now recommending a photoquadrat (PQ) method over the chain intercept transect method widely adopted by the members of the first t

SUBMITTER: Valles H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6896942 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature