#TEMPORARY ACCESSION NUMBER: #ACCESSION NUMBER: #CONTRIBUTOR: Dr. Alison Green The Nature Conservancy PO Box 772 Townsville, Queensland Australia 4810 (+61-7) 4729-8490 email: agreen@tnc.org #CONTRIBUTOR INSTITUTION: The Nature Conservancy #ORIGINATOR: same #ORIGINATOR INSTITUTION: same #TITLE: Reef Fish Surveys for Fagatele Bay, American Samoa, 2007 #ABSTRACT: Fish surveys were conducted in November 2007 using visual census techniques at Fagatele Bay under the guidance of Dr. Alison Green, the Nature Conservancy. This data set was collected at Transect 2, Fagatele Bay, in collaboration with surveys of NODC Accession 0066319, which is composed of coral and benthic surveys by Dr. Douglas Fenner and Dr. Charles Birkeland. Set 0066319 includes other locations on Tutuila, though this fish set is only from Fagatele Bay, and due to conditions, was restricted to Transect 2, at depths of 3, 6, 9, 12, and 18m. #PURPOSE: The purpose of the ongoing monitoring of coral reef communities is to document the recovery, or further decline, of coral and fish communities in Fagatele Bay, and elsewhere around Tutuila, and to determine if reef communities have changed substantially since the combined effects of A. planci outbreaks and hurricanes that devastated American Samoa reefs in the past 30 years. #FUNDING: U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Ocean Service Office of National Marine Sanctuaries American Samoa Government Department of Commerce Environment Division #LOCATION EXTREMES: SOUTHERNMOST LATITUDE: 14.3657 SOUTHERNMOST LATITUDE HEMISPHERE: S NORTHERNMOST LATITUDE: 14.3631 NORTHERNMOST LATITUDE HEMISPHERE: S WESTERNMOST LONGITUDE: 170.7638 WESTERNMOST LONGITUDE HEMISPHERE: W EASTERNMOST LONGITUDE: 170.7626 EASTERNMOST LONGITUDE HEMISPHERE: W #LOCATION KEYWORDS: South Pacific, American Samoa, Tutuila Island, Fagatele National Marine Sanctuary, Fagatele Bay #SAMPLING STATIONS: MAPS: ../data/1-data/Map_Fagatele_Transect_Locations.jpg COORDINATES: FAGATELE BAY Transect 2 - 10 ft S 14 21.939' W 170 45.791' Transect 2 - 20 ft S 14 21.785' W 170 45.756' Transect 2 - 30 ft not available Transect 2 - 40 ft not available #BEGIN AND END DATES: YYYY MM 2007 11 - 2007 11 #SAMPLING PERIODS: November 2007 #PARAMETERS: fish species total and relative abundance of species total and relative abundance of family species richness size of 4 main families size of 2 main species size structure of 4 main families #METHODOLOGY: Reef fishes were surveyed using the same underwater visual census techniques used in previous surveys: 30 x 2m belt transects laid perpendicular to the four permanent transect lines in FBNMS. This method is described in detail by Birkeland et al. (1987, 1994). In addition to recording fish species and abundance on each transect as in all previous surveys, fish sizes have also been recorded since 1998. Due to bad weather and limited boat access, only one of the permanent transect lines (Transect 2, depths 3, 6, 9, 12 and 18m) was surveyed by Alison Green in November 2007 (this report). The remaining permanent transect lines will be surveyed by Ben Carroll, and results of these surveys will be provided when they have been completed. Alison Green also conducted the fish surveys in 1995, 1998 and 2001, while two other observers conducted the surveys in 1985 and 1988 (Richard Wass and Steve Amesbury respectively). (Only surveys from 2007 are in this data set). Data Analysis Fish data from Fagatele Bay and the three historic fish transects (Fagatele Bay, Cape Larsen and Sita Bay) were summarized to determine the relative abundance and species richness at each site and each depth. Fish data from the historic transects were also converted to density estimates (no. individuals per hectare) to make the data among years more comparable (to adjust for the change in sampling area in the 2004 surveys), and to match international standards for fish survey data. Long term trends in coral and fish communities in Fagatele Bay, Pago Pago Harbour and other sites around Tutuila were compared from 1977-1985 to 2007. Fish size data in Fagatele Bay are only available for the three most recent surveys (2001, 2004 and 2007). These data will be summarised at the family level to determine the size-frequency of four important fisheries families over the last seven years once all the data have been collected: Acanthuridae (surgeonfishes), Scaridae (parrotfishes), Lujanidae (snappers) and Serranidae (groupers, see Green 2002 for further details). Size frequency of two important fisheries species will also be compared over the last seven years: Cephalopholis argus (Family Serranidae) and Ctenochaetus striatus (Family Acanthuridae). #INSTRUMENT TYPES: SCUBA transect tape #REFERENCES: - Birkeland, C., Randall, R., Wass, R., Smith, B., Wilkins, S. 1987. Biological resource assessment of the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS MEMD 3. 232pp. - Birkeland, C., Randall, R., Amesbury, S. 1994. Coral and reef-fish assessment of the Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Report to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. 126pp. - Fenner, D., Green, A., Birkeland, C., Squair, C., and Carroll, B., 2008. Long term monitoring of Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Tutuila Island, American Samoa: results of surveys conducted in 2007/8, including a re-survey of the historic Aua Transect. Prepared for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the American Samoa Department of Commerce, Environmental Division. 58 pp. - Green, A.L. 2002. Status of the coral reefs on the main volcanic islands of American Samoa: a resurvey of long term monitoring sites (benthic communities, fish communities, and key macroinvertebrates). A report prepared for the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, P.O. Box 3730, Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799. 135 pp. - Green, A., Miller, K., and C. Mundy. 2005. Long term monitoring of Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Tutuila Island, American Samoa: results of surveys conducted in 2004, including a re-survey of the historic Aua Transect. #SUBMITTING MEDIUM: email attachment #FILE FORMATS: ../data/0-data Files as received by NODC from the originator file: fagatele surveys 2007_ AG.xls format: MS Office Excel 97-2003 content: reef fish surveys 2007 by Alison Green mulitple sheets, see 1-data (below) for description of each sheet ../data/1-data These files were made by NODC based on the original files in ../data/0-data. The *.pdf file was copied from NODC Accession 0066319. The *.xls files were dumped into text Comma-Separated Version (CSV) format for archival. Since the *.xls file has multiple sheets, one CSV file was created for each sheet. The filename is the same with the original name of the sheet appended with underscores added for spaces. file: Fagatele_Squair_Edit_Aug_06.pdf content: PDF/A format technical data report file: Map_Fagatele_Transect_Locations.jpg content: JPEG figure dipicting transect locations in Fagatele Bay file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_fbnms_raw_data.csv content: primary reef fish data fields: Year, Transect (only 2), depth (m), Family, Species, functional group, size for inclusion in functional group, minimum adult size, biomass conversion factors (a and b), size, number, comment file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_size_of_2_main_species.csv content: size data for 2 main species fields: size, sum of number for Cephalopholis argus and Ctenochaetus striatus, and grand total file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_size_of_4_main_families.csv content: size data for 4 main families fields: year, size, sum of number for Acanthuridae, Lutjanidae, Scaridae, Serranidae, and grand total file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_size_struc_4_families.csv content: size data for 4 main families fields: size, sum of number for Acanthuridae, Lutjanidae, Scaridae, Serranidae, and grand total file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_spec_rich_per_trans_and_depth.csv content: total species richness, sum of # species fields: transect, depth, total, year, family, species, total file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_Table1_of_raw_data.csv content: Family and species lists as found in technical data report fileds: transect, depth, family, species, number (count) file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_total_abund_per_trans_and_depth.csv content: abundance fields: year, transect, depth, total file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_total_and_rel_abund_fam.csv content: total and relative abundance by Family fields: sum of total, family, total, number file: fagatele_surveys_2007_AG_total_and_rel_abund_species.csv content: total and relative abundance by Species fields: sum of total, species, total, number #DATASET SIZE: 2675 kbytes #NUMBER OF DATA UNITS: 1 transect, 5 depths #MISCELLANEOUS: Additional Coral/Benthic Surveys from American Samoa in the NODC Archive: Accession Comment 0000622 Birkeland, USGS, Fagatele, other sites Tutuila, 1995-1998 0000735 Birkeland, USGS, multi-island, 2002 0001470 Birkeland, USGS, multi-island, 2002, includes additional fields 9800197 Friedlander, NOAA, Ofa, 1992 0001955 Fenner, ASDOC, Tutuila, 2003-2004 0001972 Mundy, Univ. Tasmania, multi-island, 1995 (also fish) 0002177 Coles, Bishop Museum, multi-island, 2002 (also fish) 0001973 Green, Nature Consv., multi-island, 1994-2002 (also fish) 0066319 Fenner, Birkeland; Tutuila 2004-2008 benthic/corals (in collaboration with this reef fish dataset) 0068665 Fenner, Tutuila, 2005-2009, benthic, corals