Coral reef ecosystem marine protected area monitoring in Fagamalo, American Samoa: comprehensive assessment of coral demography (adult and juvenile corals) from belt transect surveys in 2015 (NCEI Accession 0166380)

In 2010 the village of Fagamalo, Tutuila, American Samoa, designated a no-take Marine Protected Area that sees the protection of 2.25 square kilometers of ocean. Because little is known regarding the status of living marine communities in the area, and at the request of the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, NOAA scientists conducted surveys to assess the status of the benthic communities and establish a baseline against which to compare temporal change.

The tabular data described here were collected via belt transect surveys of coral demography (adult and juvenile corals) by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) according to protocols established by the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). In 2015 data were collected at 18 stratified randomly selected sites. These data include:

1) an assessment of coral colony density and size-class distribution for the selected monitoring sites;

2) an assessment of coral recruitment at the monitoring sites; and

3) an evaluation of coral colony condition, including mortality, disease, and bleaching.

These data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive. Additionally, photoquadrat benthic images were also collected (documented and archived separately).