N. GBR - Green (AUMO99)

Setting

A no-take Marine National Park Zone, open to visitors but off-limits to collection. The expedition's own site table classifies AUMO99 as an inner open lagoon reef on an intermediate aspect.

General benthic features

On Monkman Reef's second dive no corals grew deeper than 16-17 m, but the 5-8 m reef flat compensates with real diversity: Platygyra, Diploastrea, S. pistillata, Lobophyllia, and Turbinaria all crowding a well-developed shallow shelf. Alongside the hard coral already reported for this site, the same transects recorded 11% turf. Non-living substrate came to 4.0% dead coral, 6.0% rubble, and 21% sand. These figures come from the expedition's own 933-site benthic master and are survey results, not photographic estimates.

Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• Anderson's own transects at 10-15 m ran 5-15% live coral by eye, on sand-broken ground, apart from one particularly rugged stretch near 10 m that hit 40-50% cover and the dive's highest species count; the GRE survey transects recorded 28%.
• Transect mean 28 ± 17% SE (n = 2 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is the expedition's station value.

Stressors

Not everything up there looked healthy, though — several needle coral (Seriatopora hystrix) colonies on the flat were visibly sickly, even as others nearby "still looked okay."

Fish and other fauna

Two stingrays were the marine-life highlight. Paired fish transects recorded about 28 fish species per transect and about 20 kg per 100 m2 of biomass.

Comparisons with other data

No prior survey data from this site. If you would like to share yours, please email us.