Benthic cover derived from analysis of benthic images collected at coral reef sites in Batangas, Philippines from 2015-05-23 to 2015-06-03 (NCEI Accession 0162828)

The benthic cover data described here result from benthic photo-quadrat surveys conducted by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) in 2015 along transects at fixed climate survey sites located on hard bottom shallow water (< 15 m) habitats in the Philippines. Climate sites were established by CREP to assess multiple features of the coral reef environment (in addition to the data described herein) over time.

Benthic habitat photographs were quantitatively analyzed using a web-based annotation tool called CoralNet (Beijbom et al. 2016). Images were analyzed to produce three functional group levels of benthic cover: Tier 1 (e.g., hard coral, soft coral, macroalgae, turf algae, etc.), Tier 2 (e.g., Hard Coral = massive, branching, foliose, encrusting, etc.; Macroalgae = upright macroalgae, encrusting macroalgae, bluegreen macroalgae, and Halimeda, etc.), and Tier 3 (e.g., Hard Coral = Astreopora sp, Favia sp, Pocillopora, etc.; Macroalgae = Caulerpa sp, Dictyosphaeria sp, Padina sp, etc.).

These benthic cover data for the Philippines provide an estimate of the benthic community composition at each climate survey site, and give context to the results from the other climate survey components (archived separately).