Maldives - Baa Atoll site 8

Setting

Anderson's sample sheet records 20-25 m visibility.

General benthic features

A high-relief reef front tumbling from a coral-crowded crest into deep blue, with terraced table Acropora, staghorn thickets, cauliflower Pocillopora, clouds of orange anthias, a school of bannerfish, and a nurse shark resting under a ledge (e.g., Image 10, Image 11, Image 12, Image 13, Image 15, Image 17, Image 18, Image 19, Image 20, Image 21, Image 22); nurse shark (e.g., Image 16, Image 29).

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Tagged colonies sampled at site 8 (e.g., Image 1, Image 3, Image 4, Image 6, Image 7, Image 8, Image 9, Image 14).

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Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 45%, a photo-based estimate: Claude's visual estimate of live hard coral on 49 of Anderson's January 2016 habitat photographs from research site 8, before the 2016 bleaching (SE 1.7 percentage points; n = 49 photos). Most frames are oblique views, which tend to overstate cover, so treat it as approximate.
• Atoll-wide context, not a survey of this site: Coral Reef CPR point-intercept transects pooled across Baa Atoll read 64% in April 2016, during the bleaching (n=40 transects), and 35% in July 2016, after it (n=50 transects); we were part of the CPR team.

Stressors

This was tagged-and-measured monitoring work, photographed roughly three months before the 2016 El Niño bleaching event across Baa's study reefs. Some colonies already carried stark-white branch sections and tips in January 2016, recent mortality, cause not stated (e.g., Image 35).

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No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores were evident.

Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Other notes

Research site 8 of the January 2016 Maldives monitoring trip (sites 6 and 7 are the Gaagandufaruhuraa and Kashidhoo Faru pins; sites 9 and 10 have their own pins). The reef is not named in the field records.