Status of Coral Reef Communities on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica: Are We Talking about Corals or Macroalgae Reefs?
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Area
2.2. Survey Sites and Data Collection
2.3. Ecosystem Metrics
- Coral richness: Number of coral species encountered at each benthic transect (spp. 2.5 m−2).
- Substrate rugosity: Estimated rugosity index values for each transect.
- Sea urchin density: Number of sea urchins encountered at each motile invertebrate transect per area (ind. m−2).
- Fish richness: Number of fish species encountered at each transect (spp. 50 m−2).
- Fish biomass: Summation of biomass estimates of all fishes counted at each fish transect per area (kg 100 m−2).
- Herbivore fish biomass: Summation of biomass estimates of fishes of the families Acanthuridae and Scaridae counted at each transect per area (kg 100 m−2) [50].
- Large fish density: Number of fishes greater than 20 cm in total length counted at each transect per area (ind 100 m−2). Lester et al. [18] used a >40 cm cutoff to measure this metric. However, we did not count any individual with an estimated total length greater than 40 cm, so we decided to use the >20 cm cutoff.
- Potential fishery value: To quantify the potential fishery value of the reef fish assemblage, we multiplied the species-specific biomass estimates for each transect by the species-specific price estimates reported by Lester et al. [18] (USD 100 m−2). The price estimates are based on fishery statistics from Puerto Rico that provided an estimate of value in USD per pound of fish landed by species or by family (Lester et al. [18]). For species that did not appear in the Lester et al. [18] list, we first determined if they had or did not have a fishery value based on the information listed in FishBase under the human uses category [51]. If “commercial fisheries” was listed as a human use of the specific species, we then assigned it the price estimate of a similar species included in the Lester et al. [18] list (i.e., of the same genus or family). Of the total fish species encountered on the surveys, four species of commercial fishery importance were not listed in the species-specific price estimates reported by Lester et al. [18] (Supplementary Material Table S4).
2.4. Data Analysis
3. Results
4. Discussion
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Quezada-Perez, F.; Mena, S.; Fernández-García, C.; Alvarado, J.J. Status of Coral Reef Communities on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica: Are We Talking about Corals or Macroalgae Reefs? Oceans 2023, 4, 315-330. https://doi.org/10.3390/oceans4030022
Quezada-Perez F, Mena S, Fernández-García C, Alvarado JJ. Status of Coral Reef Communities on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica: Are We Talking about Corals or Macroalgae Reefs? Oceans. 2023; 4(3):315-330. https://doi.org/10.3390/oceans4030022
Chicago/Turabian StyleQuezada-Perez, Fabio, Sebastián Mena, Cindy Fernández-García, and Juan José Alvarado. 2023. "Status of Coral Reef Communities on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica: Are We Talking about Corals or Macroalgae Reefs?" Oceans 4, no. 3: 315-330. https://doi.org/10.3390/oceans4030022