|
Description:
Title:
Spatiotemporal trends in benthic and reef fish communities in the Mariana Archipelago
Author(s):
Gajdzik, Laura
Ingeman, Kurt
Kindinger, Tye L.
Oliver, Thomas
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (U.S.).
Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research.
Corporate Name:
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (U.S.).
Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research.
Dates of Publication:
2023
Abstract:
The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) was explicitly designed to summarize coral reef site-level data at the regional and island scales. While the results are geographically comprehensive, this sampling design limits the utility of the NCRMP dataset to inform local resource management decisions at sub-island scales. Accordingly, managers typically rely on smaller-scale efforts that trade spatial comprehensiveness for finer spatiotemporal resolution. To reconcile managers’ scale of interest and better leverage NCRMP data, we present an effort to integrate NCRMP with local coral reef monitoring data to assess the temporal variation in fish and benthic communities over the last couple decades, during which heat stress events and acute disturbances (e.g., typhoons, crown-of-thorns outbreaks) have occurred. We identified common community metrics from all monitoring programs, compared these metrics between populated and remote islands, and analyzed their trends at the island- and downscaled sector-scales (sub-island spatial units that are homogeneous in benthic cover).
Keywords:
Benthos
Reef fishes
Zoogeography
Place Keywords:
Northern Mariana Islands
Local Corporate Name:
NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service)
PIFSC (Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center)
CIMAR (Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research)
CoRIS (Coral Reef Information System)
Format:
PDF
Type of Resource:
Technical Memorandum
Genre:
NOAA technical memorandum NMFS PIFSC; 152
Note:
The National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) was explicitly designed to summarize coral reef site-level data at the regional and island scales. While the results are geographically comprehensive, this sampling design limits the utility of the NCRMP dataset to inform local resource management decisions at sub-island scales. Accordingly, managers typically rely on smaller-scale efforts that trade spatial comprehensiveness for finer spatiotemporal resolution. To reconcile managers’ scale of interest and better leverage NCRMP data, we present an effort to integrate NCRMP with local coral reef monitoring data to assess the temporal variation in fish and benthic communities over the last couple decades, during which heat stress events and acute disturbances (e.g., typhoons, crown-of-thorns outbreaks) have occurred. We identified common community metrics from all monitoring programs, compared these metrics between populated and remote islands, and analyzed their trends at the island- and downscaled sector-scales (sub-island spatial units that are homogeneous in benthic cover).
URL:
DOI:
|
