Coral Reefs Of Palau PDF Download

"Worldwide, coral reefs are affected by both acute and chronic disturbances. Acute disturbances have a short-term but intense impact that often spreads over large spatial scales. Ecological monitoring is then very useful to follow changes after acute disturbances and understand how coral reefs recover. Yet, in Palau, before 2001, no coral reef monitoring data at the scale of the island were available to quantify disturbance impacts, coral mortality, and recovery time. PICRC’s long term monitoring program was set up in 2001 to document these changes through time and to inform stakeholders about coral reef status and trends. The aim of this report is to document coral reef trends through time in different habitats and depths, and to highlight spatial and temporal differences in recovery time following the 1998- related bleaching event and more recently typhoon disturbances. Our findings showed that coral reefs took a minimum of 10 to 12 years to fully recover from the 1998-El Nino related mass bleaching event. In the absence of further large-scale disturbance, coral communities within the inner reefs and western outer reefs appeared to have reached a coral-dominated stable phase. PICRC’s long term monitoring data on fish and macro-invertebrates provided useful insights into differences among habitats and general trends through time. However, we highlighted some gaps in data collection and survey design which are now considered; an adapted monitoring protocol has been implemented at PICRC to better inform management in the future regarding commercially-targeted fish stocks."--Page 2.