Long-term monitoring of the health of Ninglaoo Reef.

We propose a collaborative study between AIMS, CALM and UWA that develops cost effective methods of monitoring the health of coral reef communities at Ningaloo. Our study will use existing methods and develop recent advances in more sophisticated methods to provide current and future insights in the health of keystone communities, including corals, fish and algae. Firstly, we will use the most commonly used methods of quantifying changes in benthic communities (e.g. coral, algae) from video footage, and fish communities using visual censuses. These methods will be applied to determine the levels of spatial (number of sites/reefs) and temporal (number of surveys) replication necessary for detecting predetermined changes in community structures, through use of statistical tests such as power analysis. These data will be the basis of a long-term, cost-effective, monitoring program for Ningaloo. Secondly, we intend to quantify the demographic parameters that underlie the changes in the abundances of adult communities, of which rates of recruitment are among the most important. Rates of recruitment of corals and fish will be quantified at different sites and reefs along Ningaloo, to determine background variation and to identify the likely sink and sources of recruits. Knowledge about which reefs supply and receive most recruits, is vital to an understanding of their resilience and the levels of protection they should be provided. Thirdly, changes in the size-frequency of key groups of corals and fish will be combined with information about adult abundances and recruitment rates to follow cohorts through time and to infer the effects of significant events on the current and future health of the communities.