CORAL REEF MONITORING REPORT 2018 Malapascua - Daanbantayan Alicia Dalongeville (Lead Science Officer) Axelle Jorcin (Co-Founder) Ian Mills (Co-Founder) TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................. 3 LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... 4 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... 5 CONTRIBUTORS ...................................................................................................................................... 6 AKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 7 A. CORAL REEF MONITORING ................................................................................................................ 7 B. PEOPLE AND THE SEA ORGANISATION ................................................................................................. 8 C. PROGRAM AIMS ............................................................................................................................... 8 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................................... 10 A. STUDY AREA AND SURVEY SITES ...................................................................................................... 10 B. EXPEDITIONS AND VOLUNTEER TRAINING ........................................................................................... 14 C. SURVEY METHODS ......................................................................................................................... 15 1. Benthic Survey: Point Intercept Transects (PIT) ....................................................................... 15 2. Invertebrates & Impacts Survey: Belt Transects (BT) ................................................................ 16 3. Fish Survey: Underwater Visual Census (UVC) ......................................................................... 16 4. Coral Recruitment Survey ........................................................................................................ 17 5. Environmental Parameters ....................................................................................................... 18 D. DATA ANALYSES ............................................................................................................................ 19 RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................ 20 A. BENTHIC COVER ............................................................................................................................ 20 B. CORAL COVER ............................................................................................................................... 23 C. CORAL HEALTH AND IMPACTS .......................................................................................................... 26 D. CORAL RECRUITMENT ..................................................................................................................... 29 E. FISH ............................................................................................................................................. 30 F. INVERTEBRATES ............................................................................................................................. 36 DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................................... 41 A. BENTHIC COVER ............................................................................................................................ 41 B. CORAL HEALTH AND IMPACTS .......................................................................................................... 42 C. CORAL RECRUITMENT ..................................................................................................................... 43 D. FISH ............................................................................................................................................. 43 E. INVERTEBRATES ............................................................................................................................. 46 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 49 REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................... 50 APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................................................... 54 A.1 BENTHIC ORGANISMS AND SUBSTRATE TYPES RECORDED IN THE PIT SURVEYS .......................................... 54 A.2 LIST OF INVERTEBRATES AND IMPACTS SURVEYED ON BELT TRANSECTS .................................................... 55 A.3 LIST OF FISH SPECIES SURVEYED WITH UNDERWATER VISUAL CENSUS...................................................... 56 APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................................... 60 B.1 RESULTS OF THE CORRELATION TESTS ................................................................................................. 60 B.2 BIVARIATE PLOTS OF ALL TESTED CORRELATIONS ................................................................................... 61 Coral Reef Monitoring Report 2018 3 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Situation map showing the location of the 11 protected areas within the Municipality of Daanbantayan. ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 2. Location of the 18 survey sites within Daanbantayan Municipal waters. .................................... 12 Figure 3. Point Intercept Transect (PIT) method used to conduct the benthic survey. ............................... 15 Figure 4. Belt Transect (BT) method used for the Invertebrates and Impacts survey. ................................ 16 Figure 5. Coral recruitment survey. .......................................................................................................... 18 Figure 6. Benthic cover averaged for 2018 over the 10 sites surveyed in Malapascua, the 6 sites in Campatoc, the 2 sites in Carnaza, and overall 18 sites. ............................................................................ 20 Figure 7. Maps of Malapascua (a), Campatoc (b) and Carnaza (c) showing the 2018 benthic cover percentage of each survey site. .................................................................................................................................. 21 Figure 8. Benthic cover averaged per year from 2016 to 2018 .................................................................. 22 Figure 9. Hard coral and total coral cover averaged per year from 2016 to 2018 ...................................... 23 Figure 10. Hard coral and total coral cover percentage of the 18 survey sites in 2018. ............................. 24 Figure 11: Map showing the health categories of each survey site based on their hard coral cover (a) and total coral cover (b), according to the scale of Licuanan et al. (2017). ....................................................... 25 Figure 12. Proportion of the total coral cover represented by the different growth forms. ......................... 26 Figure 13. Abundance of coral impacts and stressors on average for Malapascua, Campatoc, Carnaza and over all sites in 2018. ............................................................................................................................... 27 Figure 14. Abundance of coral impacts and stressors in average per 100m2 transect for each of the 18 survey sites in 2018............................................................................................................................................. 28 Figure 15.Mean number of coral recruits per size class recorded per square meter for 2018.................... 29 Figure 16. Fish density in average per m2 for each of the 18 survey sites in 2018. .................................... 30 Figure 17. Density of sampled fish species per m2 in average over the 9 sites of Malapascua, the 4 sites of Campatoc and over all 13 sites surveyed in 2017 and 2018. .................................................................... 31 Figure 18. Fish species and family richness in each of the 18 survey sites in 2018. .................................. 32 Figure 19. Density of commercial fish species .......................................................................................... 33 Figure 20. Boxplot of fish density per size category observed in 2018 in average over all survey sites. .... 34 Figure 21. Fish density per diet type observed in 2018 in average over all survey sites. ........................... 35 Figure 22. Fish density per family for 2018 in average over all survey sites. .............................................