Reef fish communities are spooked by scuba surveys and may take hours to recover

PeerJ
Michael J EmslieHugh P A Sweatman

Abstract

Ecological monitoring programs typically aim to detect changes in the abundance of species of conservation concern or which reflect system status. Coral reef fish assemblages are functionally important for reef health and these are most commonly monitored using underwater visual surveys (UVS) by divers. In addition to estimating numbers, most programs also collect estimates of fish lengths to allow calculation of biomass, an important determinant of a fish's functional impact. However, diver surveys may be biased because fishes may either avoid or are attracted to divers and the process of estimating fish length could result in fish counts that differ from those made without length estimations. Here we investigated whether (1) general diver disturbance and (2) the additional task of estimating fish lengths affected estimates of reef fish abundance and species richness during UVS, and for how long. Initial estimates of abundance and species richness were significantly higher than those made on the same section of reef after diver disturbance. However, there was no evidence that estimating fish lengths at the same time as abundance resulted in counts different from those made when estimating abundance alone. Similarly, there was ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 17, 2020·Journal of Fish Biology·Alistair J Cheal, Michael J Emslie
Apr 10, 2020·Royal Society Open Science·M KruusmaaJ A Alfredsen
Oct 13, 2018·The Science of the Total Environment·Sharon WismerDavid R Bellwood
Feb 19, 2019·Journal of Environmental Management·Reuven YosefFederico Morelli
Apr 4, 2021·Journal of Environmental Management·Sterling B TebbettDavid R Bellwood
May 12, 2021·Journal of Fish Biology·Gabriel S GarciaGuilherme O Longo

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