|
Monitoring programs should be designed to include measures
of success. The results of these evaluations then feed back
to modify management strategies. For example, they may help
to:
• change zoning plans to enable full protection of bleaching-resistant
sites;
• increase surveillance, enforcement, and management
interventions at resistant and resilient sites; and
• identify areas of strong recruitment in order to
implement management interventions that enhance recovery (e.g.,
control of coral predators, such as the crown-of-thorns starfish,
Acanthaster planci).
Example:
Desired conservation outcome: coral
reef communities survive or recover quickly from mass
bleaching events
| Management
objective |
Measures
of success |
Monitoring
parameters |
Monitoring
methods |
| Maintain
coral reef biodiversity by protecting bleaching-resistant
and/or resilient sites. |
Coral
reef biodiversity has been maintained at pre-bleaching
levels. |
Species
richness or other diversity indices;
abundance of corals and/or fishes (as indicators of total
species diversity) |
Standard
coral reef monitoring protocols can be used to monitor
species richness and abundance prior to and after bleaching
events.
-
Ideally, monitoring should be done at the species
level to monitor biodiversity. However, a high level
of scientific expertise is required to conduct surveys
at this level.
-
For non-specialists, coral species richness and abundance
can be monitored at the growth form level (noting
the abundance of growth forms particularly vulnerable
to coral bleaching—e.g., branching and plate
corals). Fishes can be monitored using a list of easy-to-identify
species that may be particularly vulnerable to decline
in coral communities (e.g., some butterflyfishes,
damselfishes, and wrasses).
|
| Coral
bleaching and mortality are lower in protected bleaching-resistant
and/or resilient sites than at control sites. |
Bleached
and unbleached coral counts;
live and dead coral cover;
size structure of corals (small young to old large colonies) |
Standard
coral reef monitoring protocols can be used to compare
coral communities in bleaching-resistant and/or resilient
and control sites before, during and after bleaching events. |
| Other
threats, including prohibited activities, have been reduced
on protected reefs. |
For
threat reduction: legal actions, enforcement measures,
community perception of the incidence of destructive fishing
practices;
For impact on coral communities: species richness, size
structure, cover, and live-dead-broken coral counts |
These
parameters can be assessed using:
-
Standard socioeconomic monitoring methods to monitor
the perception of local communities; and/or
- Standard coral reef monitoring programs to monitor
the impact on coral communities.
|
| Socioeconomic
benefits of reefs have been maintained at pre-bleaching
levels or above. |
Tourism,
recreation, and fishing use patterns;
income generated from reef related activities;
community records and perceptions of catch
infrastructure, health care, education, life style improvements;
perceptions of value of MPA |
Standard
socioeconomic monitoring protocols can be used to monitor
these parameters before and after bleaching events. |
| SOURCES |
| Margoluis and
Salafsky 1998, Pomeroy et al. 2003 |
 |
