Coral reef ecosystem marine protected area monitoring in Fagamalo, American Samoa: benthic images collected during belt transect surveys from 2015-10-26 to 2015-11-13 (NCEI Accession 0146681)

In 2010 the village of Fagamalo, Tutuila, American Samoa, designated a no-take Marine Protected Area that sees the protection of 2.25 square kilometers of ocean. Because little is known regarding the status of living marine communities in the area, and at the request of the American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, NOAA scientists conducted surveys to assess the status of the benthic communities and establish a baseline against which to compare temporal change. The data described here were collected via belt transect surveys of coral demography (adult and juvenile corals) by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) according to protocols established by the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Plan (NCRMP). In 2015 data were collected at 18 stratified randomly selected sites. These data include photoquadrat benthic images. Contact CREP for access to these data. Data from coral demographic surveys, including 1) an assessment of coral colony density and size-class distribution, 2) an assessment of coral recruitment, and 3) an evaluation of coral colony mortality, disease, and bleaching, were also collected for the selected monitoring sites and are documented separately by CREP.