11th ICRS Abstract book - Nova Southeastern University

23.967
Reef Watch Monitoring And How This Kind Of Coral Reef Monitoring Supports
The Objectives Of The Green Fins Programme
Justine DE RIOS* 1
1 Green Fins, Phuket Marine Biological Center, Phuket, Thailand
The Green Fins Mission Statement is: “To protect and conserve coral reefs by
establishing and implementing environmentally-friendly guidelines to promote a
sustainable dive and snorkel tourism industry”.
One of the activities promoted is coral reef monitoring. The Reef Watch method has
proved to be very effective for busy dive operators as it is a one-dive-one-survey method
that requires no special equipment other than a pencil and underwater slate. The method
is simple to understand and training for instructors and dive staff can be carried out
quickly either in a shop or on board a boat.
Results from Reef Watch monitoring can either be posted to the Phuket Marine
Biological Center for analysis or uploaded directly into the database via a form which is
found on the website www.greenfins-thailand.org
This presentation is an overview of the main components of the method and how
participation in the monitoring supports the objectives of the Green Fins Programme.
Monitoring can either be done over a 10 x 10 meter square area, or throughout the dive.
The following data is gathered:
Percentage coral cover & common types of coral
Numbers of invertebrate indicator species
Numbers of fish indicator species
Type and amount of damage to the reef
The method is quick, easy to learn and has proved very popular with dive operators that
have implemented a programme. By participating in monitoring on a regular basis, dive
operators are providing their guests with the immediate satisfaction of being part of a reef
conservation project. This is an ideal way to raise coral reef awareness and understanding
of threats to coral reefs, which is a main goal of the Green Fins Programme.
23.968
Ecological Effects Of The Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish Removal Programme On
Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar, Tanzania
Frida LANSHAMMAR 1 , Chris MUHANDO* 2
1 Conservation, Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 2 Institute of Marine
Sciences, University of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Tanzania
Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), Acanthaster planci, is a coral predator causing great
damage to coral reefs world wide. Their preferred prey is Acropora sp., and during the
last 50 years temporary COTS population increases, outbreaks, seems to occur more
frequently putting Acropora under great stress.
This study has looked at coral mortality and recovery after the last major El Niño in 1998
related to COTS population densities in the Zanzibar archipelago. It also discusses COTS
removal as a management tool for improving recovery of coral after large disturbances
such as El Niño.
Benthic data from three islands on the west coast of Zanzibar (Chumbe, Bawe, and
Changuu) show that the % cover of Acropora dropped between 10-15% during the El
Niño in 1998, after which a slow recovery could be seen on all reefs. Since a major
COTS population outbreak in 2002/2003 however the levels have dropped dramatically
down to less than 5% live Acropora on all reefs except for Chumbe where the level has
increased to the same as before the bleaching.
When increased densities of COTS were noticed inside the marine park on Chumbe, the
management initiated a manual COTS control programme where park rangers would
collect, count and measure all COTS seen inside the park in order to keep densities close
to zero at all times. Since April 2004 a total of 3306 starfish have been collected inside
the 0.4 km² marine park. All efforts have been recorded and each starfish has been
measured and the area of the reef where it was collected recorded.
This study concludes that manual COTS removal programmes indeed can have an
important positive effect on coral reef health, and that these efforts should be encouraged
as a management tool for smaller marine parks with enough human resources for
continuous collections.
Poster Mini-Symposium 23: Reef Management
23.969
Fish Assemblages Associated With Soft Coral Communities On Guam Are Depauperate
Irrespective Of Protected Status
Nola MEYER* 1 , Jennifer MCILWAIN 1
1 Marine Laboratory, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam
Soft corals have often been found to outcompete hard corals in reef areas subject to
anthropogenic disturbances. Given the increasing levels of pollution being found in coastal
waters adjacent to coral reefs, the longer-term implications of benthic community shifts needs
to be investigated. Where hard coral communities are replaced by soft coral communities the
overall rate of reef accretion may be reduced. Reef fish assemblages may also be affected as
there are clearly major differences in the habitat templates offered by hard or soft coral
communities. Perhaps surprisingly, given the significant prevalence of soft corals on Indo-
Pacific reef flats, very little research has focused on whether it is (1) a suitable habitat for reef
fish and (2) how different the fish communities associated with soft coral communities are from
the fish communities associated with hard corals. In this study, we investigated the significance
of soft coral as habitat for fish by looking at soft coral communities from 1 protected and 2 nonprotected
reef flats on Guam. Replicate stationary point counts, used to survey fish
communities, were evenly distributed across the gradient of soft coral cover at each reef flat.
The habitat was characterized by analyzing multiple photo-quadrats within each point using
benthic analysis software. Relationships between habitat and fish community were assessed
with various multivariate techniques, including non-metric multidimensional scaling. Percent
soft coral cover had no detectable effect on fish species richness or abundance. Moreover, there
were few differences among reef flats for highly targeted food fish species despite the protected
status of one site. Our findings suggest that because soft coral is a marginal habitat for fish,
MPA’s that contain high cover of soft coral, may have reduced a capacity to support high
biomass and species richness relative to areas with high hard coral cover.
23.970
SCUBA Divers In The Bahamas: Perceptions And Potential Role In Coral Reef
Management
Liana MCMANUS 1 , Wendy WOOD* 2 , Candace NACHMAN 3 , Maria VILLANUEVA 1
1 Marine Affairs and Policy, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric
Science, Miami, FL, 2 National Coral Reef Institute, Nova Southeastern University
Oceanographic Center, Dania Beach, FL, 3 MRAG Americas - NOAA, Silver Spring, MD
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) aim to conserve areas in exploited coral reef ecosystems as in
popular scuba diving destinations. Many MPAs globally are ‘paper’ parks and do not meet their
goals because of lack of funding. As part of the Bahamas Biocomplexity Project, we
interviewed SCUBA divers from September 2003 to February 2004 about their willingness to
pay (WTP) user fees to dive in coral reef-based protected areas. The study surveyed liveaboard
divers in Bimini (n=100) and Exuma (n=202) and fly-in divers to Nassau (n=201). This study
examined whether the collection of user fees from SCUBA divers was a feasible option for
funding MPAs in the Bahamas.
The majority of SCUBA divers in our study sites rated the quality of the marine environment as
either very pristine or fairly pristine: Bimini (75%), Exuma (70%), Nassau (68%). Most (77%
in Bimini, 95% in Exuma, and 69% in Nassau) were familiar with the concept of MPAs. They
were willing to pay between $2 (Bimini) and $5 (Nassau and Exuma) as a daily user fee to dive
in an MPA. Because of the divers’ prevalent perception that the Bahamian marine environment
is pristine, their awareness of the MPA concept, and the WTP of this user group, collecting user
fees appears as a viable option for funding management and enforcement of an MPA network in
the Bahamas.
We estimated that about 100,000 to 145,000 divers visited the Bahamas in 2003. Of these,
approximately 93% were fly-in divers. With a per capita expenditure of $1750, the SCUBA
diving sector contributed about $175 to 254 M or 8-12% of 2004 tourism GDP. WTP user fees
could potentially provide $1.5 to 2.2 M for conservation or less than 1% of tourism revenues, an
insignificant investment to help secure the resource base of the industry.
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