Description
The benthic complexity and urchin abundance monitoring effort provides baselines for tracking these variables at NCRMP climate stations. Climate stations are 3-4 sites per island that were selected in a stratified random fashion to be roughly equally spaced around the island, along the 15 m contour, on hard bottom, and at least 1 km away from a river mouth or embayment. Once selected we assess multiple features of the coral reef environment including in-situ temperature (STR), seawater carbonate, net carbonate accretion (CAU), bioerosion (BMU), and cryptobiota diversity (ARMS).
Structural complexity is known to be an important component in coral reef ecosystems. Ecosystem relationships that correlate with structural complexity include reef fish density and biomass, live and branching coral cover, urchin abundance and algal cover (Graham and Nash 2013). In many cases, the benthic complexity is an important indicator of benthic and fish communities.
The data were collected around the Mariana archipelago as part of the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) led missions since 2014. These data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.
Resources
| Name | Format | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| V0_TOPOGRAPHIC_COMPLEXITY MARIAN 2014.csv | Unknown | Benthic complexity and urchin abundance data captured by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program at sites across the Marianas archipelago in 2014. | Open resource |
| V0_TOPOGRAPHIC_COMPLEXITY MARIAN 2017.csv | Unknown | Benthic complexity and urchin abundance data captured by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program at sites across the Marianas archipelago in 2017. | Open resource |
| NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Website | Unknown | Link to the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program website | Open resource |
| Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords | Unknown | The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. | Open resource |
| Full Metadata Record | Unknown | View the complete metadata record on InPort for more information about this dataset. | Open resource |
| NOAA Data Management Plan (DMP) | NOAA Data Management Plan for this record on InPort. | Open resource | |
| Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Website | Unknown | Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center homepage | Open resource |
Tags
- 743
- aquatic habitat
- asuncion island
- asuncion island (19n145e0001)
- benthic
- biosphere
- cnmi
- coastal processes
- commonwealth of the northern mariana islands
- coral reef conservation program
- coral reef ecology
- coral reef ecosystem division
- coral reef ecosystem program
- coral reefs
- coral reef studies
- corals
- country/territory
- cred
- crep
- doc/noaa/nmfs/pifsc
- earth science
- ecosystem sciences division
- guam
- guam (13n144e0000)
- hi'ialakai
- macroinvertebrates
- mariana archipelago
- marianas
- marianas archipelago
- marianas trench marine national monument
- marine biology
- marine invertebrates
- maug
- maug island
- maug island (20n145e0001)
- national coral reef monitoring program
- national marine fisheries service
- nmfs
- noaa
- northern mariana islands
- northern mariana islands ( cnmi ) (18n146e0000)
- numeric data sets
- nw pacific (limit-180)
- ocean basin
- oceans
- pacific islands fisheries science center
- pacific ocean
- pagan
- pagan island
- pagan island (18n145e0001)
- pifsc
- reef habitat
- reef monitoring and assessment
- rota
- rota island
- rota island ( luta ) (14n145e0007)
- rugosity
- saipan
- saipan island
- saipan island (15n145e0002)
- survey
- survey - biological
- survey - swimmer/diver
- tinian
- tinian island (14n145e0005)
- tinian island reefs
- triennial
- united states of america
- u.s. department of commerce
- us doc
- visual estimate
- western pacific ocean
- zoology