The Nature Conservancy

2011 Summer Florida Coral Reef Disturbance Response Monitoring Quick Look Report

2011

The Nature Conservancy

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"The summer of 2011 saw the most significant coral bleaching event since the Florida Reef Resilience Program began in 2005. Almost the entire Florida Reef Tract, from the Lower Keys to Martin County, was impacted in 2011. The Florida Reef Resilience Program (FRRP) is a collaborative effort among managers, scientists, conservation organizations and reef users to develop resilience-based management strategies for coping with climate change and other stresses on Florida's coral reefs. With projected increases in coral bleaching due to climate change, the FRRP Disturbance Response Monitoring (DRM) was developed for monitoring shallow coral reefs from the Florida Keys to Martin County. The DRM consists of a probabilistic sampling design that focuses on sampling the coral population based on how corals are distributed spatially within and across different subregions and zones of the overall reef tract. For the 2011 DRM season 234 sample sites were allocated across 23 discrete reef zones in 7 subregions. Thirteen survey teams of scientific divers conducted the monitoring in 2011. Two independent 1x10m belt transects were randomly placed within each 200x200m sampling site. Indicators were then recorded for all stony corals greater than 4cm including: 1) hard coral size and 2) hard coral condition as determined by the presence of bleaching and paling, the precursor to bleaching, presence of disease, and percent morality."

FY2009 CRCP Project 20411; Project Title: Partnership Agreement with The Nature Conservancy; Principal Investigator: Jenny Waddell ~ FY09 CRCP grant NA09NOS4190173

NOS/Office for Coastal Management (OCM)

NA09NOS4190173