[Coral-List] Grand Bahama reef assessment
Thomas Goreau
goreau at bestweb.net
Sun Feb 18 12:03:52 EST 2007
Dear Rachel,
I'm just back from looking at coral reef restoration needs in Grand
Bahama and Abaco. There are only a few small patches of healthy
corals left on the south side, Most coral has died in recent years
and are overgrown with algae. Some of my colleagues there have
recently taken video of the former reefs off the West End of Grand
Bahama and plan to take more. It is pretty depressing, but the local
divers know the waters well and can show you both the best, worst,
and typical sites, all of which need to be included for the results
to be representative.
My own view is that quadrats are a waste of time because they cover
too little area, unless you do thousands of them like my father did
in the 1960s when he pioneered the method. However the best method is
to do very long video transects perpendicular to and parallel to the
major environmental gradients covering as much as possible of the
entire range, not the short little transects that are currently
popular but which are statistically inadequate in most cases to
represent the environment being surveyed, much less recognize change.
I'm forwarding this to a Grand Bahama diver, Gary Simmons, who has
spent his lifetime in the water there and is shocked at the changes.
We are very interested in seeing such surveys made in locations that
will allow us to best inform the Bahamas Government and developers
about the steps needed to stop sewage pollution of the waters, so I
urge your student to contact Gary and ensure that his results will be
in the most useful locations for making policy suggestions to clean
up the waters and restore the reefs. My Bahamian colleagues will be
glad to work with you. There are still some small fairly good areas
in the Abacos that also need to be worked on, and I suggest you
contact Troy Albury of Guana Divers and Save Guana Cay Reef if there
is a chance to do some work there. Bruce Purdy is also a gold mine of
information on long term changes in the Bahamas (I have not yet
unpacked his card with email, but Gary can get it to you).
Best wishes,
Tom
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226
goreau at bestweb.net
http://www.globalcoral.org
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:57:16 -0500
From: "Hovington, Rachel" <RHovington at aischool.org>
Subject: [Coral-List] Bahamas Research
To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Message-ID:
<F4F6F80D29ABB84B8C580C07C9573714133735 at svr-m-mail-1.aischool.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I am a teacher supervising a research project of a student who wishes to
compare coral health in reefs around Grand Bahama. He has a research
plan that involves transects and quadrats but I wondered if anyone could
point me in the direction of a good source for information regarding
quantification of reef fish community structure using a visual census
method.
Rachel Hovington
Atlanta International School
rhovington at aischool.org
404 8413881
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list