Adding a count of damselfish gardens to the benthic transects. Fish assessors are to provide a general description of reef morphology. Eliminate the turf category from algal quadrants. Distinguishing calcifying macro algae from fleshy macroalgae. It is comparable to databases on health of cities or villages prepared by public health organizations and can serve the same purposes for managers of reef parks and governmental officials concerned with fisheries and tourism.
Plans are currently underway to make the database available through the web.
The Database allows rapid summaries of coral condition, algae and fish for each site and to compare reef sites from within the same area and between areas on several scales. In addition, it is possible to do the same kind of comparison for individual species of corals or fish or even by the sizes of colonies of coral or fish. One of the exciting uses of the Database is to provide a scale of reef condition. Each participant was asked to draft a manuscript of his or her results following a standardized format. There was extended discussion of various options for publication of the reports, which led to a decision to approach the Editor of the Atoll Research Bulletin.