Coral Demographics Survey Protocol 2013 for the U.S. Caribbean and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary

The goal of the coral demographic surveys is to collect and report information on species composition, density, size, abundance, and specific parameters of condition (% live vs. dead and bleaching) of non-juvenile scleractinian corals (> 4 cm maximum diameter), and of overall species diversity (all corals) using 10m x 1m belt transects in a stratified random sampling design in hard-bottom and coral reef habitats in the U.S. Atlantic and Caribbean

This coral demographics protocol was devised to provide additional, species-specific insight (and 'signal magnitude') for corals than is provided by percent cover. Specifics of the protocol are based closely on other long-established monitoring programs in the Atlantic region, including AGRRA (Caribbean-wide), SCREAM (Florida), and FRRP (Florida). However, the sampling resolution may not capture the population structure of rare or uncommon corals, including currently listed or candidate ESA species