Featured Coral Publications

Below is a sampling of publications generated by NOAA's coral ecosystem activities. Visit the Featured Archive to see a past list of highlighted publications. To access a complete list of NOAA coral ecosystem related publications, use the CoRIS Geoportal (http://coris.noaa.gov/geoportal/) search tool.

Product Development Plan for the Next Generation of Satellite Remote Sensing Products for NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Management Activities

The report highlights product development areas using NOAA satellite remote sensing and analyzes their applicability to the Coral Program National and International Goals & Objectives for coral reef management and the U.S. jurisdictional coral reef management priorities. It also highlights remote sensing product development areas that best correlate with needs identified in these documents and that can best inform coral reef resource management in the next few years. The report concludes with a set of recommendations for product development areas the Coral Program should pursue.

Small Scale Experimental Systems for Coral Research: Considerations, Planning, and Recommendations

In the following technical memorandum, techniques and procedures are presented to assist researchers in developing small experimental systems for coral and attempts to identify possible confounding factors to consider when setting up laboratory experiments with coral. The system features presented here are intended for relatively simple experiments when funding, space, and time (i.e., experimental duration from days to one or two months) are limiting. While focused on scleractinian coral, often referred to as stony or hard coral, the following information can be applicable to studies involving other cnidarian model organisms, such as anemones (Order Actiniaria) or soft coral (Order Alcyonacea).

NOAA Coral Reef Watch 50 km Satellite Sea Surface Temperature-Based Decision Support System for Coral Bleaching Management

This report provides an overview of CRW's operational twice-weekly 0.5 degree (approximately 50 km spatial resolution) satellite coral bleaching thermal stress monitoring product suite, representing CRW's heritage product suite and the core of CRW's current DSS for much of the last decade, along with some experimental products and a major enhancement associated with the operational product suite. CRW's products are disseminated and delivered through various mechanisms and formats to satisfy different user needs and backgrounds.

Implementation of the National Coral Reef Action Strategy: Report on NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Activities from 2010 to 2011

This report covers coral reef-related activities conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program during Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011. It fulfills the requirement under the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 of periodic reporting on the activities undertaken to advance coral reef conservation as outlined in the National Coral Reef Action Strategy.

Coral reef ecosystems of American Samoa: a 2002-2010 overview

During a series of Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (Pacific RAMP) expeditions to the islands and reefs of American Samoa in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010, scientists in the PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division and partner organizations collected extensive information on coral reef biological communities and habitats and the oceanographic and water-quality parameters influencing them. The survey methods and results are described in this overview report, available for download in PDF format.

Deep Sea Research and Technology Program 2012 Report to Congress

This report, prepared in consultation with the Regional Fishery Management Councils, highlights the discovery of deep-sea coral habitats and other progress made in the nationwide research by NOAA’s Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program in 2010 and 2011.

Computing Applications for Satellite Temperature Datasets: A Performance Evaluation of Graphics Processing Units

The Coral Reef Watch program of NOAA develops and provides remote sensing tools for the conservation of coral reef ecosystems. Reef managers and other stakeholders have expressed a desire for higher resolution monitoring tools than those currently available. In moving to higher resolution global products, Coral Reef Watch faces the challenge of orders of magnitude increase in the size of datasets. Traditionally this would mean simply upgrading to faster x86 Intel-based systems however Intel performance per processor has peaked due to frequency scaling issues. Newer Central Processing Unit (CPU) development has adopted a path of multiple cores rather than increasing an individual CPU's performance. To take advantage of newer hardware, a change to parallel programming methods is required and fortunately satellite datasets are relatively well suited to parallel algorithms. However, a newer form of commodity parallel hardware, the Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is significantly advancing in both speed and performance, pushed hard by the demand of consumer gaming enthusiasts.

Total Economic Value for Protecting and Restoring Hawaiian Coral Reef Ecosystems

This report documents results of a study commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve methods for measuring the economic values that the U.S. public places on the protection and restoration of coral reef ecosystems. The work focused on the coral reefs of Hawaii. These reefs are obviously of economic importance to both the state and the nation, yet there has been less economic research focused on the reefs of Hawaii compared to other parts of the United States, particularly Florida, in the past. Several human activities impinge on Hawaii's coral reefs. In order to gain insights into the public's values for coral reef protection and restoration, the study focused on impacts from fishing and damage to reefs from ship accidents.

NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program MPA Management Assessment Checklist (pdf, 116 KB)

The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) MPA Management Assessment Checklist was developed as a simple too to assess the management of MPAs in priority coral reef sites in US jurisdictions and international areas important to the CRCP and jurisdictional partners. It will allow CRCP managers to better understand the needs of its partners in the MPA management community and help managers build and/or maintain the management capacity necessary for successful implementation of the MPA management goals and objectives.

User's Guide for the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program MPA Checklist (pdf, 209 KB)

This user's guide was developed as a reference to be used with the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program MPA Checklist to provide further clarification on the fourteen assessment areas addressed in the checklist, and to assist assessment participants in the selection of a specific tier for each assessment area. The guide includes instructions on how to conduct assessment interviews and how to complete the checklist document.

Saline-Saturated DMSO-EDTA as a Storage Medium for Microbial DNA Analysis from Coral Mucus Swab Samples

Culture-independent methods for studying the microbial community of the coral surface mucopolysaccaride layer (SML) increasingly have been used to evaluate the health of the animal host. After the initial collection and preservation of the sample, the duration of the sample voyage to a recipient laboratory is often another critical part of the sampling process, as unanticipated delays may exceed the length of time a dry shipper can remain cold, or mishandling of the shipper can cause it to exhaust prematurely. In remote areas, service by international shipping companies may be non-existent, which requires the use of an alternative preservation medium. Other methods for preserving environmental samples for microbial DNA analysis include drying on various matrices (DNA cards, swabs), or placing samples in liquid preservatives (e.g., chloroform/phenol/isoamyl alcohol, TRIzol reagent, ethanol). These methodologies eliminate the need for cold storage, however, they add expense and permitting requirements for hazardous liquid components, and the retrieval of intact microbial DNA often can be inconsistent. An evaluation of saline-saturated DMSO-EDTA (SSDE) as an ambient temperature storage medium for coral mucus samples are presented here.

 

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