Bonaire - Alice in Wonderland
Part of the regional summary: Bonaire
More about this place: Bonaire on Wikipedia
More info
Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire (NOAA CRW virtual station)A Bonaire double reef: a shallow crest with an elkhorn coral colony and a deeper ridge of brain, star, and plating corals, separated by a broad rippled sand channel where a tarpon and a southern stingray cruised. Most colonies are pigmented, with some old scars and partial die-off on brain corals but no broad bleaching.
Een dubbel rif op Bonaire: een ondiepe rifkam met een kolonie elandsgeweikoraal en een diepere rug van hersen-, ster- en plaatkoralen, gescheiden door een brede, geribbelde zandgeul waar een tarpon en een zuidelijke pijlstaartrog voorbijzwommen. De meeste kolonies zijn gepigmenteerd, met enkele oude littekens en gedeeltelijke afsterving op hersenkoralen, maar zonder grootschalige verbleking.
AI translation of this summary; the English is authoritative.
Nine independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
Two other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
12 of the 50 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
A double-reef system with two parallel coral crests separated by an open sand channel, the shallower crest with an elkhorn coral colony (e.g., Image 12) and the deeper one built on brain and boulder star coral over rubble (e.g., Image 5).
General benthic features
A coral-dense first ridge, dominated by massive/lobate forms and octocorals (e.g., Image 1, Image 3, Image 4), is separated from a deeper ridge by a broad rippled sand channel (e.g., Image 15, Image 29, Image 31, Image 45).
The deeper reef includes extensive plating corals and high relief (e.g., Image 2).
Living A. palmata (e.g., Image 12), tarpon, porcupinefish, and reef-fish schools are also documented.
Coral cover
- Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
- Coral cover: 19% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 49 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table.
Stressors
No broad bleaching pattern is visible. Most massive and plating colonies are pigmented, with localized old scars and exposed framework. The sand channel is a distinct habitat feature, not evidence of coral loss. A few close views show partial mortality on brain/massive corals, but no continuous fresh tissue-loss front can be confirmed. No corallivores were evident.
Fish and other fauna
A tarpon and a southern stingray cruised over the sand flats, and a vivid pink cheerio-textured coral colony stood out among the more muted brown reef structure (e.g., Image 6, Image 23).
Comparisons with other data
de Bakker et al. (2019) surveyed this site (station 20), 0.04 km from the pin. Within 5 km, nine independent stations recorded station-year means of 6.0–51% hard coral cover between 2004 and 2017; the nearest of these, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 17042, 0.75 km away, read 13% in 2013.
CV model comparison
More info
A few colony-focused photos raise the mean; the median is the typical photo. No computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images, so treat this as indicative rather than a measurement; it is revised as the methods improve.More info
Other rows are for comparison only and are never averaged. No diver transect exists for these photos, so agreement between rows is not accuracy.| Method | Hard coral cover (%) | Photos (n) ± SE |
|---|---|---|
| CoralSCOP edited | 19.7 | n = 53 · SE 2.0 |
| Claude (edited photos) | 18.6 | n = 49 · SE 2.6 |
CoralSCOP (edited photos) reads 19.7%, within 1.1 pp of Claude's blind point count (18.6%).
See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.
Independent surveys nearby
| Agency / program | Year(s) | Stations / distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steneck et al. (2019) | 2004–2017 | 5 stations, 1.27–4.54 km | Records ↓ |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | 2013 | 4 stations, 0.75–4.19 km | Records ↓ |
Coral Reef DiagnosticsYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)Within 5 km, 9 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 135 records between 2004 and 2017. Of the 5 stations surveyed in more than one year, 1 declined (by 1.0 points), 3 increased (by 11–16 points), and 1 changed by less than 1 point between their first and latest surveys. Two stations share the longest span (2004–2017); one, 18th Palm (Steneck et al. 2019, 2.34 km away), went from 34% in 2004 (mean of 8 records) to 45% in 2017 (mean of 4 records). The most recent nearby survey is from 2017, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (19%) sits within the range of these station-year means up to 2 km away (13–48%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods (the XL Catlin Seaview Survey uses photo-transects with automated image annotation), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steneck et al. (2019) | 18th Palm | 2004–2017 | 27–45% (range of yearly means; 36 records) | 2.34 km | doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00265 |
| Steneck et al. (2019) | Windsock | 2004–2017 | 38–51% (range of yearly means; 36 records) | 2.78 km | doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00265 |
| Steneck et al. (2019) | Bachelor's Beach | 2009–2017 | 32–48% (range of yearly means; 20 records) | 1.27 km | doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00265 |
| Steneck et al. (2019) | Calabas | 2009–2017 | 24–36% (range of yearly means; 20 records) | 3.43 km | doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00265 |
| Steneck et al. (2019) | Front Porch | 2009–2017 | 17–45% (range of yearly means; 19 records) | 4.54 km | doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00265 |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 17042 | 2013 | 13% | 0.75 km | doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930 |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 17044 | 2013 | 15% | 3.99 km | doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930 |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 17043 | 2013 | 6.0% | 4.17 km | doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930 |
| XL Catlin Seaview Survey | transect 17041 | 2013 | 14% | 4.19 km | doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930 |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data sources above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.
References
- Steneck RS, Arnold SN, Boenish R, de León R, Mumby PJ, Rasher DB, et al. (2019). Managing Recovery Resilience in Coral Reefs Against Climate-Induced Bleaching and Hurricanes: A 15 Year Case Study From Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean. Frontiers in Marine Science 6:265. PDF
- de Bakker DM, van Duyl FC, Perry CT, Meesters EH (2019). Extreme spatial heterogeneity in carbonate accretion potential on a Caribbean fringing reef linked to local human disturbance gradients. Global Change Biology 25:4092-4104. DOI
- Gonzalez-Rivero M, et al. (2019). Seaview Survey photo-quadrat and image classification dataset. The University of Queensland (UQ eSpace) data collection. DOI