Environmental Monitoring of Coral Bleaching and Disease in the Hawaiian Islands: assessment of coral reef communities in Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu of the Main Hawaiian Islands from...

This data package contains coral reef community composition data gathered during Line-Point-Intercept (LPI) surveys around the islands of Maui, Hawaii, and Oahu of the main Hawaiian Islands from March 8, 2010 to November 8, 2011 as part of a joint project with the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) and the State of Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR). The line-point-intercept (LPI) method (Hill and Wilkinson 2004) is used to assess the percentage of cover for live corals and other benthic elements.

The surveys were conducted by a SCUBA diver swimming along two pre-selected 25-m transect lines, during which the benthic element falling directly beneath the transect line was recorded at 25- or 50-cm intervals for 100 or 50 total points/observations per transect, respectively. Benthic elements were assigned to one of ten benthic categories: live (scleractinian) corals, octocorals, dead corals, coralline algae, macroalgae, turf algae, cyanophyes, zoanthids, other sessile macro-invertebrates, and sand. Benthic organisms were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible (corals, macroalgae, and zoanthids to genus or species). Turf algae included pavement, rock, rubble, and turf algae observations.

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 Division (CRED) and partners at DAR.

Raw survey data includes metadata about the surveys (location, date, observer, mission, method) and benthic organism identification and count.

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 surveys in the Main Hawaiian Islands, including Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu.

Not applicable

Not applicable

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 Division (CRED), 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.

None

Please cite NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) when using the data.

Example:

Coral Reef Ecosystem Division; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2019). Environmental Monitoring of Coral Bleaching and Disease in the Hawaiian Islands: assessment of coral reef communities in Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu of the Main Hawaiian Islands from March 8, 2010 to November 8, 2011 using the Line-point Intercept (LPI) method. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/25349.

None

None

Oracle database: V0_BENT_LPI

Observations were made by a diver who is an expert in coral biology. The surveys were conducted one time per site per survey visit, with temporal replication within each 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, Maui office, 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 8 sites where the latitude and longitude were not captured: MAI-906, MAI-908, MAI-910, MAI-913, MAI-920, MAI-921, OAH-904, and OAH-905

The same methods of data collection were used at each of the sites surveyed at this location, and were conducted by the same scientists.

Observations are periodically checked during expeditions for consistency. Data entry is usually conducted on the same day as the surveys using a data entry interface with several data controls employed, and are quality controlled by the observer. Following a mission, the data is then run through rigorous quality control checks by the data management team before the data are migrated to the Oracle database. 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.

The line-point intercept survey method to generate coral reef community composition data. Counts are ultimately used to generate benthic cover (%).