A doubling of stony coral cover on shallow forereefs at Carrie Bow Cay, Belize from 2014 to 2019.

ABSTRACT: To better understand the decline of one of earth's most biodiverse habitats, coral reefs, many survey programs employ regular photographs of the benthos. An emerging challenge is the time required to annotate the large volume of digital imagery generated by these surveys. Here, we leverage existing machine-learning tools (CoralNet) and develop new fit-to-purpose programs to process and score benthic photoquadrats using five years of data from the Smithsonian MarineGEO Network's biodiversity monitoring program at Carrie Bow Cay, Belize. Our analysis shows that scleractinian coral cover on forereef sites (at depths of 3-10 m) along our surveyed transects increased significantly from 6 to 13% during this period. More modest changes in macroalgae, turf algae, and sponge cover were also observe

SUBMITTER: de Pablo LX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8478911 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature