Percent cover of living organisms on experimental tiles of three treatments (scrubbed, reef, protected) determined using digital images of each tile taken on days 0, 19, and 57 after field deployment.
Methodology:
Custom-fired stoneware clay tiles were deployed and conditioned on an octocoral-dominated reef in Grootpan Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. One of three treatments was applied to each tile (n = 8 per treatment): a control, referred to as Reef; scrubbed with a soft nylon bristle brush, referred to as Scrubbed; or removed from the reef and maintained in a sea table for 15 days, referred to as Protected. Tiles were placed into 41 29 17 cm plastic containers filled with 12 L of 10 m filtered seawater. Two tiles from the same treatment were placed in each container on top of 1 cm square plastic mesh, rolled into 5 cm tall cylinders so that tiles were lifted off the bottom of the container to provide water circulation underneath. Competent planulae (n = 150) were added to each container and allowed to settle for eight days and then polyps were counted.
Percent cover of living cover was determined using digital images of each tile taken on days 0, 19, and 57 taken with an Olympus Tough TG-5 or TG-6 12-megapixel waterproof digital camera and two Sola Dive Pro 2000 lights.
Location: Grootpan Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands (also known as East Cabritte in other studies) (18.309, -64.719). All tiles were deployed at this site.
Instruments:
Olympus Tough TG-5 or TG-6 12-megapixel waterproof digital camera (Olympus Corporation of the Americas, Center Valley, PA)
Sola Dive Pro 2000 lights (Light & Motion, Marina, CA)
Wells, C., Martinez-Quintana, A., Tonra, K., Lasker, H. (2021) Percent cover of living organisms on experimental tiles with different levels of turf algae cover during an in-situ experiment in St. John, US Virgin Islands in August and September of 2019. Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). (Version 1) Version Date 2021-09-14 [if applicable, indicate subset used]. doi:10.26008/1912/bco-dmo.855879.1 [access date]
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