2018 Tubbataha benthic resurvey

• Main Authors: Mendoza, Jennifer Danielle Deauna, Licuanan, Wilfredo Roehl Y., Feliciano, Giannina Nicole R.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (Philippines); Marine parks and reserves—Monitoring—Philippines; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11535
• Institution: De La Salle University

The annual monitoring resurvey of Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park was done on May 3 to 8, 2018 to update the status of the coral reefs in the location. Ten regular monitoring stations (i.e., Stations 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, Jessie Beazley A, and Jessie Beazley B), two grounding sites (i.e., that of the USS Guardian and Min Ping Yu), and one new station (i.e., Southwest Wall of the South Atoll) were visited this year. Hard coral cover (HCC) and benthic composition were obtained using photo-transect method in the ten regular monitoring stations. HCC of five out of the ten stations reveals statistically significant changes through time based on linear regression analysis, but these changes may not be ecologically significant overall. The quadrat method was also used in the grounding sites to determine the changes in within different zones in the sites. The ‘ground zero’ quadrat in USS Guardian showed a statistically significant increase of 1.4% (p-value 0.001) in HCC and a decrease in algal assemblage cover by 2.7% (p-value