Populations

Evaluating the precariousness of coral recovery when coral and macroalgae are alternative basins of attraction

When coral and macroalgae are alternative attractors, the trajectory of the benthic community following a major disturbance is shaped in part by whether herbivores keep macroalgae suppressed, leaving reef surfaces in a state suitable for coral colonization. Because macroalgae tend to colonize much faster than coral, an important issue is how close ambient herbivory is to the level where control of macroalgae is lost, that is, the precariousness of the coral-invasible state relative to the switch-point to macroalgae.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Finding Signals in the Noise of Coral Recruitment, data for Edmunds 2021 Coral Reefs

These data, looking at coral recruitment were collected in Moorea, French Polynesia, measured over 13 years, and tested for associations with environmental conditions. Recruitment of spawning pocilloporid corals was recorded using settlement tiles immersed for ~ 6 months at 10 m and 17 m depth, biannually, and the environment was quantified through seawater clarity (Kd490), surface and bottom flow speeds, coral cover, and temperature. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No.

MCR LTER: Coral Reefs: Coral bleaching and mortality in July 2019; data for Speare et al. 2021 Global Change Biology

These data are from field surveys conducted at seven sites at 10m depth on the outer reef of Mo’orea following a marine heatwave and coral bleaching event in the Austral Summer of 2019. These data describe the size, percent of the colony that was bleached, and the percent of the colony that recently dead for corals in the genera Acropora and Pocillopora. At six sites (LTER 1-6) coral colony size was quantified using ordinal size bins and observers collected data on all coral colonies > 5cm diameter.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Porites biomass data in support of Edmunds and Putnam Roy. Soc. Biology Letters 2020

Growth was measured every two to four months following collection of genotypes of the coral Porites lobata and P. lutea from the back reef of Mo'orea, French Polynesia, in 2018. Measurements include size, bouyant weight, biomass and environment conditions. These data support a manuscript submitted by P. Edmunds and H. Putnam in 2020 to Royal Society Biology Letters titled 'Science-based approach to using growth rate to assess coral performance and restoration outcomes'. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Scleractinia calcification data in support of Ginther, et al., JEMBE 2020

This study explored the effects of variation in seawater pCO2 on coral calcification using experiments conducted over one month between 9 April 2018 and 18 May 2018. Branches (~4-cm long) of Acropora retusa were sampled from colonies at 10-m depth on the fore reef of Mo'orea, French Polynesia (17° 28′ 53.9004" S, 149° 49′ 50.5992" W). We tested the hypothesis that depressed calcification caused by elevated pCO2 (~1000 μatm) is relaxed (i.e., calcification increases) upon return to ambient pCO2 (~400 μatm).

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Data for manuscript J.Exp.Bio 2020 Edmunds and Burgess

This dataset contains allometry measurements on corals in tanks conditioned to simulate varied carbon dioxide partial pressure to test how coral colony size modulates PCO2 and temperature sensitivity in a branching acroporid. Data for Figure 1 in a manuscript submitted by P. Edmunds and S. Burgess to J of Experimental Biology in 2020 titled 'Emergent properties of branching morphologies modulate the sensitivity of coral calcification to high PCO2' This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Branches and plates of Porites rus insensitive to OA and warming. Lenz and Edmunds, JEMBE 2017

Data in support of Lenz & Edmunds, JEMBE 2017. [doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2016.10.002] This study tested the hypothesis that intraspecific morphological plasticity within a scleractinian coral elicits differential responses to elevated PCO2 and temperature. In Mo'orea, French Polynesia, two short-term laboratory experiments (21 and 14 days) were conducted to test the effects of PCO2 (400 vs. 700 µatm), and PCO2 (400 vs 1000 µatm) combined with temperature (27.0 vs. 29.8 C), on branches and plates of Porites rus.

MCR LTER: Data from Duvall, Rosman and Hench, in review. Representation of coral reef roughness using obstacle and surface-based approaches, submitted to JGR: Oceans

This archive contains natural coral reef topography data from the northern coast of Mo’orea, French Polynesia. These data were used to compute reef roughness density using obstacle- and surface-based estimates and models, and to compare the two approaches for representing reef topography. Primary support for this product came from the National Science Foundation Physical Oceanography program (OCE-1435530 and OCE-1435133), and as well as Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Data for figures in Doo, et al., Ocean acidification effects on in situ coral reef metabolism, Scientific Reports, 2019

These data result from a Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment (FOCE). Data include net community calcification (NCC), net community production (NCP), and net ecosystem calcification (NEC) for the figures in Doo, Edmunds and Cparpenter, Ocean acidification effects on in situ coral reef metabolism, Scientific Reports, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-48407-7. Data for Figure 2A describe the 24-h NCC collected in the in situ SCoRe-FOCE. Data for Figures 2B and 2C describe the offset of NCC of the high CO2 treatment from ambient collected in the in situ SCoRe-FOCE.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Community structure outdoor flume data in support of Edmunds 2019 Marine Biology

This dataset contains data in support of Edmunds, P.J., S.S. Doo, R.C. Carpenter, 'Changes in coral reef community structure in response to year-long incubations under contrasting pCO2 regimes', Marine Biology, 2019, doi:10.1007/s00227-019-3540-2. Here, the effects of ocean acidification (OA) on back reef communities from Mo'orea, French Polynesia (17.492S, 149.826W), were tested from 12 November 2015 to 16 November 2016 in outdoor flumes maintained at various mean pCO2 levels.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Data in support of Edmunds 2018 Scientific Reports

These data are selected from the larger MCR LTER timeseries datasets knb-lter-mcr.4001 and knb-lter-mcr.4 which contain annual surveys of coral recruitment and coral cover and are formatted here in support of this publication: Edmunds, P.J., Implications of high rates of sexual recruitment in driving rapid reef recovery in Mo'orea, French Polynesia, Scientific Reports 8, Article number: 16615 (2018). DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-34686-z This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Data to support manuscript: Experimental Support for Alternative Attractors on Coral Reefs

Ecological theory predicts that ecosystems with multiple basins of attraction can get locked in an undesired state, which has profound ecological and management implications. Despite their significance, alternative attractors have proven to be challenging to detect and characterize in natural communities. On coral reefs, it has been hypothesized that persistent coral-to-macroalgae ‘phase shifts’ that can result from overfishing of herbivores and/or nutrient enrichment may reflect a regime shift to an alternate attractor, but to date the evidence has been equivocal.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Density-dependence data for Edmunds, et al., Ecology 2018

This dataset contains coral cover data describing the context within which denisty-dependence (DD) was measured on the island of Moorea, French Polynesia, including data describing the benthic community, diameters of Pocillopora spp. measured in photoquadrats, surveys of corals and recruits. These data correspond to figures 1 through 3 in the manuscript by PJ Edmunds, L. Bramanti, and H.R. Nelson, 'Density-dependence mediates coral community structure', Ecology, 99(11), 2018, pp. 2605-2613. This ata set was revised on 27 November 2018. The data managed for Fig.

MCR LTER: Coral Reefs: Stegastes behavior data in support of Kamath, et al., Oikos 2019

Stable between-group differences in collective behavior have been documented in a variety of social taxa. Here we evaluate the effects of such variation, often termed collective or colony-level personality, on coral recovery in a tropical marine farmerfish system. Groups of the farmerfish Stegastes nigricans cultivate and defend gardens of palatable algae on coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific. These gardens can promote the recruitment, growth, and survival of corals by providing a refuge from coral predation.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Recruitment during El Niño, Edmunds PLOS1 2017

The negative implications of the thermal sensitivity of reef corals became clear with coral bleaching throughout the Caribbean in the 1980’s, and later globally, with the severe El Niño of 1998 and extensive seawater warming in 2005. These events have substantially contributed to declines in coral cover, and therefore the El Niño of 2016 raised concerns over the implications for coral reefs; on the Great Barrier Reef these concerns have been realized.

MCR LTER: Coral Reefs: Coral recruitment to 25 m2 plots on the forereef surrounding Moorea, French Polynesia, 2011-2015

These data report the number of Pocilloporid, Acroporid and Poritiid corals recruiting annually to permanent 5 m X 5 m plots established at a depth of approximately 10 m on the forereef of Moorea, French Polynesia. Plots were established following an outbreak (2007-2010) of the corallivorous crown-of-thorns seastars (Acanthaster planci) and the close passage of Cyclone Oli to Moorea in February, 2010.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Coral larval data in support of Rivest et al. 2017 ProcRoyalSocB

In this study, lipid utilization and biological parameters of planula larvae of the cauliflower coral Pocillopora damicornis under future ocean conditions were examined using manipulative experiments. P. damicornis larvae were collected in Moorea and Taiwan, two sites spanning the biogeographic range of the species: Moorea and Taiwan. Larvae released on the peak day of spawning were used at both sites.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Conspecific aggregation mitigation of OA on calcification of the coral Pocillopora verrucosa, JEXBIO 2017

The study was conducted in April 2015 in Moorea, French Polynesia, using colonies of Pocillopora verrucosa (~ 4 cm in planar diameter) collected from the outer reef of the north shore at 10–12 m depth. Corals were collected from multiple sites separated by 100-200 m on the outer reef to maximize the likelihood that the selected coral colonies were genetically unique, and transferred directly to an acclimation tank.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Pocillopora Abundance, Cover and Recruitment data for Tsounis and Edmunds 2016 Peer J

The dataset contains stony coral cover percent and Pocillopora cover obtained in on the north shore of Moorea in 2010 and 2014/2015 using photoqudrats. A subset of the data were obtained by counting adults and juveniles in situ using quadrats. Recruitment rates were quantified using settlement tiles. These data support the publication Tsounis and Edmunds, The potential for self-seeding by the coral Pocillopora spp. In Moorea, French Polynesia, Peer J, 2016.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Coral larval data in support of Rivest and Hofmann 2015 JEMBE

In this study, lipid utilization and biological parameters of planula larvae of the cauliflower coral Pocillopora damicornis under future ocean conditions were examined using manipulative experiments. For the first 24 h following their release, planulae were cultured in seawater controlled to mimic a future ocean scenario (1030 μatm pCO2, 30.7 °C) as well as present-day, ambient ocean conditions (475 μatm pCO2, 28.1 °C; confirmed by autonomous sensors deployed at our study site).

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Fish Counts versus Coral Diversity for Holbrook, et al. PLoS One 2015

To test the impact of the regional species pool on the coral-fish diversity relationship, the same experiment was conducted in lagoons of Schumann Island in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea (5°31’S, 150°5’E), Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (14º 41’S, 145º 27’E), and Moorea in French Polynesia (17° 30’S, 149° 50’W). Divers counted individuals of all species observed on or interacting with 45 patch reefs were constructed using six abundant, co-occurring coral species that were major habitat providers for fish.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Computer Vision: Multi-annotator Comparison of Coral Photo Quadrat Analysis

This repository contains the Moorea portion of a larger data package published in conjuncture with: "Towards automated annotation of benthic survey images: variability of human experts and operational modes of automation", Beijbom et al. PLOS One, 2015. The rest of the data package is hosted at the Dryad data repository (doi:10.5061/dryad.m5pr3). The larger data package is an aggregate dataset from four Pacific coral reef monitoring projects in: Moorea (French Polynesia), the northern Line Islands, Nanwan Bay (Taiwan) and Heron Reef (Australia).

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Habitat Utilization and Pairing Patterns of Mutualistic Shrimps and Gobies from 7 Indo-Pacific regions

We analyzed network level specialization for eight Indo-Pacific networks of obligate, mutualistic gobies and shrimps, and elucidated ecological and evolutionary factors driving specialization. To accomplish this we collected and analyzed data on species pairings in Moorea, French Polynesia (lat. -17.49, long. -149.84), Kenting, Taiwan (lat. 21.95, long. 120.76), and Kimbe Bay, New Britain, Papua New Guinea (PNG; lat. -5.50, long.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Computer Vision: Moorea Labeled Corals

The Moorea Labeled Corals dataset is a subset of the MCR LTER packaged for computer vision research. It contains 2055 images from three habitats IDs: fringing reef outer 10m and outer 17m, from 2008, 2009 and 2010. It also contains random point annotation (row, col, label) for the nine most abundant labels, four non coral labels: (1) Crustose Coralline Algae (CCA), (2) Turf algae, (3) Macroalgae and (4) Sand, and five coral genera: (5) Acropora, (6) Pavona, (7) Montipora, (8) Pocillopora, and (9) Porites. These nine classes account for 96% of the annotations and total to almost 400,000 points.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Sand Flat Sampling: Sand Infaunal Surveys

These data represent abundances of infaunal invertebrates in lagoonal sand flats along the north shore of Moorea. Surveys were conducted once along five transects in the Vaipahu lagoon within the LTER 1 study site. The number of individuals from distinct invertebrate taxa were counted from 1815 cubic centimeter sand cores taken at varying distances from a large patch reef. The data also include sand grain size distributions.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Coupled Natural-Human Systems: Survey of fish being sold on the roadside 2020-2021

This dataset includes the results of a survey on fish sold by the roadside in Moorea, French Polynesia. During 2020-2022, more than 7000 fish were identified and sized from photographs taken during the market surveys. These data were collected as part of CNH-L: Multiscale Dynamics of Coral Reef Fisheries: Feedbacks Between Fishing Practices, Livelihood Strategies, and Shifting Dominance of Coral and Algae (BCS-1714704) with additional support from the Moorea Coral Reef LTER (OCE- 1637396). This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Long-Term Coral Population and Community Dynamics: Annual Island Wide Coral Demography Survey 2011 ongoing

Demographic performance (recruitment, growth, and survival) are quantified annually for multiple individual colonies of the three most common genera (Acropora, Pocillopora, Porites) at both backreef and forereef sites. Each coral was tagged in 2011 and subsequently sampled again in 2012 to track colony growth and mortality dynamics. However, since 2013, investigators have transitioned to identifying coral through detailed mapping methodology and will continue to identify corals using this method in the subsequent years.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Benthic Community Dynamics: Island Scale Coral Cover Analysis

These data describe the results of outer reef surveys that are conducted on an irregular schedule to quantify coral reef community dynamics on a scale of kilometers. The first island-wide survey was completed in 2006, and the second in 2010; we anticipate conducting such surveys every 5-6 years or as needed to capture the large-scale effects of disturbance regimes. The island-wide sampling adds 3 new sites per shore (for a total of 5 sites/shore with the fixed LTER sites) in each year that the larger scale analyses are completed.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Community Dynamics: Juvenile Coral Density from 2005, ongoing

These data describe the density (colonies per quadrat of 0.5 x 0.5 m size) of juvenile corals on the fringing reefs and outer reef (10 m depth) of Moorea. Beginning in 2005, surveys are completed annually at LTER 1 and 2 in the austral autumn (April-May). Addition event-motivated sampling began in 2011 with additional sites from the other two shores of Moorea surveyed and surveys at LTER 1 and 2 repeated in August; these surveys will likely continue for 1-2 years but will not become a maintained component of the annual sampling.

MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Coral Community Dynamics: Coral Recruitment

These data describe the recruitment of scleractinian corals to unglazed terracotta tiles secured independently to horizontal reef surfaces. The tiles are positioned horizontally to create a cryptic habitat beneath (approximately 1 cm high) and are in place approximately 6 months at a time; they are replaced ca. January and September. The tiles are bleached and inspected for coral skeletons using a dissecting microscope. Coral recruits are resolved to three families (Poritidae, Acroporidae, Pocilloporidae, and "others") and are scored on upper, lower and side surfaces.

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