Demographic monitoring protocols for threatened Caribbean Acropora spp. corals

"This manual is intended to serve as a basic but evolving platform to involve many partners in collecting comparable data sets focused on Atlantic Acropora spp. from a variety of locations throughout the Caribbean. This data will be utilized in the ongoing efforts and responsibilities of NOAA-Fisheries to assess species' status and promote recovery under the auspices of the US Endangered Species Act. The protocols described in this manual have been developed over a period of five years of focal monitoring of primarily A. palmata in the upper Florida Keys by our team. We have also applied these techniques in Tortola, BVI and Curacao. Obviously, every population and site is different and may require adaptation to the specific monitoring methods"--Intro.