Great Barrier Reef Marine Monitoring Program - Coral (MMP)

Monitoring has been carried out on inshore reefs since 2005.

Benthic community monitoring program variables:

Ongoing: percent cover of benthic organisms nominally to genus level resolution (hard corals, soft corals and macroalgae); densities of juvenile corals; prevalence of coral diseases;

Ended (last sample): settlement of coral larvae to tiles(2012); numbers of genera; size distributions of coral colonies (2005);  composition of benthic Foraminifera communities (2014, ongoing collection of samples in storage). Sediment sample variables: grain size fractions; nitrogen; organic, inorganic and total carbon (2014, grainsize samples in storage). Sediment samples 2015-2020 collected, in storage but no grainsize or chemical analysis undertaken.

Geographic areas (note not all locations have all data in all years) relate to Natural Resource Management (NRM): Wet Tropics NRM, NQ Dry Tropics NRM, Mackay Whitsunday Isaac NRM, Fitzroy Basin NRM.

Reef locations: Barren Island, Bedarra Island (started 2016), Daydream Island, Dent Island, Double Cone Island, Dunk Island, Fitzroy Island, Frankland Group, Geoffrey Bay, Havannah Island, High Island, Hook Island, Humpy &amp; Halfway Island, King Reef (ended 2014), Lady Elliot Reef, Middle Island, Middle Reef (ended 2014), North Barnard Group, North Keppel Island, Orpheus Island, Pandora Reef, Peak Island (ended 2020), Pelican Island, Pelorus Island, Pine Island, Seaforth Island, Shute &amp; Tancred Island, Snapper Island, Cape Tribulation fringing reefs (ended 2006).

Data monitors the condition of coral community characteristics on inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. 

The objective of the biological monitoring of nearshore reefs is to document trends in the benthic reef communities on selected nearshore reefs. These changes may be due to acute disturbances such as cyclonic winds, bleaching and crown-of-thorns starfish and floods as well as those related to land runoff (e.g. nutrient and sediment concentration), which disrupt processes of recovery such as recruitment and growth.

These data are collected in conjunction with another dataset: Inshore Water Quality as part of the Reef Rescue Marine Monitoring Program.

In 2005 benthic cover was estimated from video frames then from 2006 on from digital photos
Sampling of coral size classes changed from 5 by 10m long transects at each site and depth and all coral sizes in 2005 and 2006 to only sizes 0-2cm, 2-5cm and 5-10cm in 5 by 20m long transects from 2007 to 2017, and then only 0-2cm and 2-5cm size classes from 2018 on.

Sampling design: coral community attributes are monitored at both 2m and 5m depths below lowest astronomical tide at each of two sites on each reef. Within site and depth combinations are five 20m transects marked with steel pickets at the beginning and steel rod at the middle and each end. Markers are maintained through time. Compass directions are maintained for entire site.

Frequency of sampling has varied over the duration of this program. All reefs were sampled in 2005 and 2006, from 2007 to 2014 a set of 14 core reefs, at which water-quality was also monitored, and Snapper Island, were surveyed annually with the remainder scheduled for sampling on a biennial cycle. Opportunistic sampling over this period infilled with unscheduled samples after some severe disturbance events. From 2015 to 2018 reefs were scheduled for biennial sampling with half of the reefs in each region sampled in alternate years, contingency sampling was included to resample unscheduled reefs in the event of a disturbance. In 2019 all reefs, other than Peak were sampled and the sample of all reefs scheduled from 2020.
Benthic cover is estimated from digital photos taken at 50cm intervals along the upslope side of the marked transects. Incidence of coral mortality and disease are counted within 2m wide belts centred on the marked transects. Small size-class corals are counted within 34cm wide belts on the upslope side of the marked transects. Sediment samples are collected from deposits along the 5m deep transects using cut off 100ml syringe tubes to collect a 1cm deep sediment plugs.
Sediment trap data and current data are available for a subset of reefs and limited duration.
Temperature data-series from in-situ loggers are available from most reefs.

Data are defined within the the Oracle REEF database, reefmon schema by P_CODE = &quot;IN&quot;

Data from this project contirbute to Reef and Regional Report card scores for coral indicators. For these products indicator values at each reef and depth are based on arithmetic means of site and or transect level observations and converted to indicator scores. The file coral.csv includes the data that inform the report cards. 

Data are also available on on the AIMS Reef Monitoring dashboard where reefs-level estimates are based on modelled predictions of the observed data. Access to raw data for research purposes can be arranged on request.

Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network