Description:
Title:
Status and Trends Assessment of Benthic Coral Reef Communities in Vatia Bay, American Samoa, 2015–2020
Author(s):
Vargas-Ángel, Bernardo
Huntington, Brittany
United States. National Marine Fisheries Service. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (U.S.)
Corporate Name:
United States. National Marine Fisheries Service. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (U.S.)
Dates of Publication:
2020
Abstract:
This report provides a summary of key findings for work completed in 2015 and 2020 to assess the status and trends of the benthic coral reef communities in Vatia Bay, American Samoa. Collectively, these data offer a contrast between the 2015 baseline assessment and the subsequent 2020 status survey, and examine how benthic and coral community response variables differed across factors of year (2015 and 2020) and reef stratum (mid-depth north, mid-depth south, shallow north, and shallow south). We deliberately focused our analyses exclusively at detecting measurable change but not attribution. A forthcoming analysis of the Vatia reef biological monitoring data set will attempt to couple the measurable physical and biological gradients to better discriminate and ascribe change over space and time. This work plans to incorporate all available environmental and driver data for Vatia Bay.
Keywords:
Benthos
Coral communities
Coral reef ecology
Evaluation
Statistics
Place Keywords:
American Samoa
Pacific Ocean
Local Corporate Name:
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service)
PIFSC (Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center)
CoRIS (Coral Reef Information System)
Type of Resource:
Data Report
Genre:
PIFSC data report ; DR-20-020
Note:
This report provides a summary of key findings for work completed in 2015 and 2020 to assess the status and trends of the benthic coral reef communities in Vatia Bay, American Samoa. Collectively, these data offer a contrast between the 2015 baseline assessment and the subsequent 2020 status survey, and examine how benthic and coral community response variables differed across factors of year (2015 and 2020) and reef stratum (mid-depth north, mid-depth south, shallow north, and shallow south). We deliberately focused our analyses exclusively at detecting measurable change but not attribution. A forthcoming analysis of the Vatia reef biological monitoring data set will attempt to couple the measurable physical and biological gradients to better discriminate and ascribe change over space and time. This work plans to incorporate all available environmental and driver data for Vatia Bay.
URL:
DOI:
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