Crown-of-thorns
starfish and
coral surveys
using the manta tow
and
scuba search techniques
Standard
operational procedure,
Number 8
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Long-term Monitoring of
the Great Barrier Reef
I.R. Miller
Australian
Institute of Marine Science
Townsville ©2003
On-line Reference Series
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Preface
This Standard Operational
Procedure was first produced as an internal report in January
1995. This was subsequently followed by a second addition
(also in 1995) that was revised to suit a wider audience and
also to keep up with changes to the design of the Australian
Institute of Marine Science’s Long-term Monitoring Program
(LTMP). Since this time there have been a number of changes
made to the way broadscale surveys are conducted by the LTMP
on the Great Barrier Reef. The third addition has been
modified to reflect these changes.
The AIMS LTMP monitors the
Great Barrier Reef recording information on benthic reef
communities, reef fish abundance, crown-of-thorns starfish
populations and other causes of coral mortality on an annual
basis. Data on benthic reef communities, reef fish abundance
and coral mortality is monitored along permanently marked
transects.
Broadscale data on the
abundance and distribution of crown-of-thorns starfish are
collected using a plot less method called "manta
tow".
This Standard Operational
Procedure remains Volume 1 in a series of five, produced by
the Long-term Monitoring Program at the Australian Institute
of Marine Science. It details the standard procedure used to
manta tow entire reefs in Part one,
and site specific SCUBA searches in Part
two. Parts three and four
provide details on data management, training and quality
control. Further details of the Long-term Monitoring Program
are described in Sweatman et al. (2001).
This publication will also be available
soon in printed form from the AIMS bookshop
Some of these files are in Adobe Corp. PDF format. To view
these files you will need Acrobat Reader (v5.0 or later) from Adobe Corp.
Contents
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 Standard
operational procedure 8 |
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