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Fish assemblages and benthic communities in the Manell-Geus watershed, Cocos Lagoon and Achang Reef Flat Marine Preserve
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2020
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Series: PIFSC data report ; DR-20-002
[PDF-1.46 MB]
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Description:In 2014, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established the Manell-Geus watershed as a Habitat Focus Area (HFA), as part of the Habitat Blueprint, with a range of biological and social objectives. One of those objectives is to improve the health of fish habitat in the HFA. This effort is focused on nearshore coral reef habitats in the Achang Reef Flat Marine Preserve (MP) and Cocos Lagoon and the surrounding forereef (hereafter referred to as Cocos) (Figure 1). The project uses integrated monitoring for key indicators, including fish abundance, fish diversity, coral cover and coral diversity, to inform the HFA’s adaptive management process. NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center’s (PIFSC) Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) and Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) staff conducted baseline surveys of coral reef fishes and benthos in the HFA in 2014. As the full baseline survey effort could not be regularly repeated due to budget and staffing constraints, NOAA PIRO worked with the University of Guam Marine Lab (UOGML) to establish two long-term monitoring sites at a subset of the sampled HFA area. One was within the Achang MP, and the other, Cocos, was located outside of the MP along the eastern side of Cocos Lagoon. NOAA PIRO and UOGML repeated some of those surveys in 2018 using the same survey methods. This report summarizes biological data gathered by those surveys, and, where possible, assesses the degree of change in a number of biological indicators. Overall, the area was characterized by low coral cover and high macroalgal cover, with no significant change detected in the benthos from 2014 to 2018. Similarly, the fish assemblage showed no significant changes from 2014 to 2018, both inside and outside of the Achang MP.
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CoRIS Project ID:CoRIS Project ID 31247
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Rights Information:Public Domain
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Compliance:Submitted
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