Mauritius - Carpenter
Part of the regional summary: Mauritius
More info
Southern Mauritius (NOAA CRW virtual station)A Mauritius boulder field of stacked coral heads and rock with sand channels between, locally steep where boulder flanks fall into open blue. Massive Porites boulders dominate, with table Acropora and brain corals, dense schools of snapper and chromis overhead, and no widespread bleaching.
Un champ de blocs fait de têtes coralliennes et de roches empilées séparées par des chenaux de sable, localement escarpé là où les flancs des blocs plongent dans le bleu. Des Porites massifs dominent, avec des Acropora tabulaires et des coraux-cerveaux, des bancs denses de lutjans et de chromis au-dessus, et aucun blanchissement généralisé.
Traduction par IA de ce résumé ; la version anglaise fait foi.
Five independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
One other CRD dive site within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
11 of these 50 photographs are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
Carpenter is a low-relief boulder and patch-reef structure built from stacked coral heads, rubble, and rocky substrate rather than a wall or slope, with sand and rubble channels separating reef hummocks (e.g., Image 1, Image 5, Image 16).
General benthic features
Massive Porites-type boulders dominated the framework, interspersed with tabular and plating Acropora, meandering brain coral heads consistent with Platygyra, and foliose growth compatible with Pavona/Pachyseris (e.g., Image 4, Image 7, Image 14).
Live cover was patchy, concentrated on the upper surfaces and flanks of the boulders (e.g., Image 6).
Coral cover
Coral cover: 18% — the site cover estimate from Anderson Mayfield's Mauritius manuscript (his manual point count and CoralNet, weighted equally); the manual point count alone is 15%. The earlier four-method average for this site was 16.9%; every method is compared in the table below. Anderson keeps an eye out for newer CV models and will refresh this CoralSCOP and DINOv3 figure once a more trustworthy option is available.
Stressors
No widespread bleaching was evident; the pale olive-gray coloration of many Porites boulders is consistent with the natural tissue color of that genus (e.g., Image 20).
Fish and other fauna
Dense schools of snapper-type fish and chromis/damselfish moved over the boulder field, with surgeonfish, a scorpionfish, and a trumpetfish also recorded (e.g., Image 13, Image 18, Image 19).
Comparisons with other data
No independent survey was made at this exact site; the nearest ones are listed in the table below.
CV model comparison
More info
The settled rule would raise every Mauritius site by 0–3.7 pp. Awaiting Anderson's ruling. The Claude row is the manuscript's Claude (with image context) value, scored on the same manual-reference frames as the manual count (v42 Table 3); the last of its five context batches had been seen before, so it is not fully blind. Anemone Garden is flagged non-reef in the source (anemone habitat); its manual value stands but carries no error term. CoralSCOP (SAM-based mask-sum), edited photos: n/a — no edited copies exist; EDITED_UNEDITED_RULES.md records Mauritius as verified 347/347 unedited| Method | Hard-coral cover (%) |
|---|---|
| Site cover estimate | 17.8 |
| Manual (draft manuscript) | 14.6 |
| CoralNet | 10.9 |
| In-house DINOv3 | 21.2 |
| CoralSCOP unedited | 21.0 |
| Claude | 12.3 |
Independent surveys nearby
| Agency / program | Year(s) | Stations / distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original collectors (compiled by McClanahan et al. 2016) | 2016 | 2 stations, 3.22–3.25 km | Records ↓ |
| Reef Check | 1999 | 1 station, 2.81 km | Records ↓ |
| WCS Kenya / University of Mauritius via MERMAID | 2019 | 1 station, 0.69 km | Records ↓ |
| WCS via MERMAID | 2016 | 1 station, 4.78 km | Records ↓ |
Dr. Coral (CRD)Year-average (no detectable trend)Within 5 km, 5 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 7 records between 1999 and 2019. The most recent nearby survey is from 2019, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (18%) sits within the range of these surveys (10–46%, excluding 3 best-patch values above 70% that are not a site mean); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects; MERMAID is a data platform: each MERMAID row names the organization that did the survey, and its method is in the row's hover text), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once the range is shown. Station names are not dive-site names. Values marked best patch exceed 70%: surveyors usually chose the richest area, so they are not site means.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | Island Reef, Anse La Raie | 1999 | 46% | 2.81 km | — |
| Original collectors (compiled by McClanahan et al. 2016) | ALR/ALBC (Mauritius) | 2016 | 89% best patch | 3.22 km | — |
| Original collectors (compiled by McClanahan et al. 2016) | ALR/ALLC (Mauritius) | 2016 | 98% best patch | 3.25 km | — |
| WCS via MERMAID | Bain Boeuf | 2016 | 71% (2 images) best patch | 4.78 km | Briand J, Darling E. 2016. 2016 bleaching surveys. MERMAID |
| WCS Kenya / University of Mauritius via MERMAID | Coin de Mire | 2019 | 10% (2 images) | 0.69 km | Darling E, McClanahan T, Muthiga N. 2019. Mauritius 2019-2020. MERMAID |
Data & links
- CoralNet image repository for this region ↗
- Photo portfolio ↗
- Coral Reef Diagnostics page for this area ↗
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data are from Coral Reef Diagnostics and the organizations named in the data-sources table above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.