Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of coral demography and condition across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from 2007-09-21 to 2012-08-19 (NCEI Accession 0184869)

The data described here result from benthic coral demographic surveys across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from September 21, 2007 to August 19, 2012. Sites were surveyed using belt transects to collect adult coral colony metrics, including colony size, partial mortality in two categories - old dead and recent dead, and non-lesion forming condition including bleaching and disease.

A two-stage stratified random sampling (StRS) design was employed to survey the coral reef ecosystems throughout the region. The survey domain encompassed the majority of the mapped area of reef and hard bottom habitats in the 0-30 m depth range. The stratification scheme included island, reef zone, and depth. Sampling effort was allocated based on strata area and sites were randomly located within strata. The StRS design effectively reduces estimate variance through stratification using environmental covariates and by sampling more sites rather than sampling more transects at a site. Therefore, site-level estimates and site-to-site comparisons should be used with caution.

The data were collected as part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument funded research cruises to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2012. These data were funded separately from but are complementary to coral demographic data collected during NOAA's Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (Pacific RAMP) missions led by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Ecosystem Sciences Division (formerly the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division) across the Pacific Islands Region from 2008 to 2012.