SIT Graduate Institute/SIT Study Abroad SIT Digital Collections Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection SIT Study Abroad Fall 2016 Reef fish and coral assemblages on Hospital Point and near Bastimentos Island, Panama Elaine Shen SIT Study Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection Part of the Aquaculture and Fisheries Commons, Environmental Health Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Other Animal Sciences Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons, and the Tourism Commons Recommended Citation Shen, Elaine, "Reef fish and coral assemblages on Hospital Point and near Bastimentos Island, Panama" (2016). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 2490. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/2490 This Unpublished Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the SIT Study Abroad at SIT Digital Collections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection by an authorized administrator of SIT Digital Collections. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Reef fish and coral assemblages on Hospital Point and near Bastimentos Island, Panama Independent Study Project; SIT Panama Fall 2016 Elaine Shen, Rice University 2018 1 ABSTRACT Because worldwide declines coral reef health are of major concern, studying coral reefs through the lens of conservation efforts at local scales is essential for determining and monitoring effective policy measures. In the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, there are conflicts of interest between exploitative rapid tourism development, overfishing practices, and national efforts to conserve the local marine biodiversity. Coral and reef fish species abundance richness, diversity, evenness, and similarity were measured to see how coral and reef fish assemblages changed between protected and unprotected areas.