Environmental Monitoring of Coral Bleaching and Disease in the Hawaiian Islands; Belt Transect Surveys and Disease Assessments of Coral Populations in Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu from March 8, 2010 to November 8, 2011

Coral belt transect surveys, focused at quantifying the relative abundance, density, and size-class distribution of the anthozoan and hydrozoan corals, as well as the condition and health state of the coral populations were conducted around the islands of Maui, Hawaii, and Oahu by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program and the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) from March 8, 2010 to November 8, 2011.

The surveys were conducted along two pre-selected transect lines. For coral observations the transect length was 12 m long and the transect width was 1 m wide (0.5 m on each side of the transect line). For coral condition and health observations, the transect length was between 12.5 and 25 m long and the transect width was 1 m, 2 m or 4 m wide (0.5 m, 1.0 m, or 2.0 m on each side of the transect line). The surveyed area was 24 m^2 per site for the coral observations, and ranged from to 25 m^2 to 200 m^2 per site for the disease observations.

Within each transect 1-m segments were surveyed, whereby in each segment all coral colonies whose center fell within 0.5 m of either side of the transect line were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible (genus or species) and colony size visually estimated and binned by its maximum diameter in one of 7 size classes: 0-5 cm, 5-10 cm, 10-20 cm, 20-40 cm, 40-80 cm, 80-160 cm, or >160 cm.

When a coral colony exhibited signs of disease or compromised health, additional information was separately recorded. Within each of the two transects, all diseased coral colonies whose center fell within 0.5–2 m on each side of each transect line were carefully examined, measured (length and width of the colony in centimeters, when survey time allowed), identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible, and assigned to one of several types of afflictions, including coral and algal diseases, bleaching, infections, infestations, discolorations, predation, pigmentation responses, skeletal growth anomalies, and tissue loss. Severity of the affliction (mild, moderate, marked, severe, acute) was also recorded for a subset of bleaching observations only. Photographic documentation was also captured (archived and documented separately).

Raw survey data includes species presence, colony counts per taxon, colony size (binned sizes for coral observations, colony width and length for a subset of disease observations), affliction observed, and severity of condition (for observations of bleached corals only).

The field data described herein are part of a joint project between NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, NOAA Fisheries, and the State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) aimed at advancing the understanding of the occurrence, abundance, and outbreak of coral bleaching and disease in the Hawaiian Archipelago through expanded field surveys and in-situ and remotely-sensed temperature data. To this end Line-Point-Intercept (LPI), belt-transect surveys of coral population, and diseases quantitative assessments were conducted on Maui, Hawaii, and Oahu in the Main Hawaiian Islands by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) and partners at DAR.

Raw survey data includes metadata about the surveys (location, date, observer, mission, method), coral observations (transect dimensions, species identification, colony counts per taxon, and colony size by size-class bin), and condition/health observations (affliction, severity, and colony size).

While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of the current state of the art, NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty.

Extent of belt transect surveys around Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu

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NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

CREP welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. CREP has a very diverse set of field activities that generates large volumes of data using an array of data collection protocols.

The following recommendations are for your consideration as you use this data:

1) Data analyses should take all field exigencies into account. The most effective way to do this would be active collaboration with CREP principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by CREP, proper acknowledgement of both CREP and the individuals responsible for data collection is expected. Citing the DOI (if available) is preferred, a non-DOI example is listed below.

3) If you collect or generate data for the same study areas, CREP requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the CREP Data Management Team of any errors and discrepancies that are discovered during the course of using these data. They are further urged to bring to the attention of the Team all problems and difficulties encountered in using these data. This information is necessary in order to improve the collections and to facilitate more efficient and economical data processing and retrieval. The users are asked to supply copies of any missing data that may be located, and to provide information as to significant subsets and special aggregations of data that are developed in using the material provided.

Example citation:

"This publication makes use of data products provided by the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP). The analysis and interpretations presented here are solely that of the current authors.”

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

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Please cite NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) when using the data.

Example:

Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2017). Environmental Monitoring of Coral Bleaching and Disease in the Hawaiian Islands; Belt Transect Surveys and Disease Assessments of Coral Populations in Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu from March 8, 2010 to November 8, 2011. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/25285.

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Oracle database: V0_CORAL_OBS_A and V0_CORAL_DZ_OBS_A. Descriptions are found in the LIST_OF_DISEASES table

Observations were made by two divers who are experts in coral biology. The population parameter and disease surveys are conducted one time per site per survey visit, with temporal replication within the survey year.

Survey transects were appropriately marked to allow direct, site-level temporal comparisons.

Some of the survey sites were co-located with those periodically monitored by the State of Hawaii, Division of Aquatic Resources and were considered to be representative for this type of work. Efforts were made to include broad spatial coverage of the reef area, but weather conditions or other environmental constraints may have precluded some surveys.

There are 5 sites where the latitude and longitude were not captured: MAI-906, MAI-908, MAI-910, OAH-904, and OAH-905

The same methods of data collection were used at each of the sites surveyed at this location.

Quality control of the data occurred at a few stages from data entry to data ingestion into the Oracle database. Data entry is conducted using a data entry interface with several data controls employed, and are quality controlled by individual divers checking entry errors at a separate time by checking the data entered against the physical data sheets. The data was then run through rigorous quality control checks by the data management team before the data was migrated to the Oracle database. There are also several queries in the MS Access / Oracle database to flag errors based on pre-defined criteria. Given the size of the data set, there remains some possibility of typographical or other errors.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

Belt transect surveys of corals and coral diseases are investigations that provide a high degree of taxonomic resolution for coral. The majority of surveys were conducted at depths between 3 and 48 m. The selection of survey sites was made in close consultation local partners.