Philippines - Anilao: Ligpo Island
Part of the regional summaries: Philippines - Luzon and Philippines
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Central Philippines (NOAA CRW virtual station)Ligpo Island is more a soft-coral, sponge, and gorgonian site than a stony-coral one, with dense Dendronephthya, Sarcophyton, pulsing Xenia fields, and standing barrel sponges over a moderate-relief rocky slope; stony corals present include tabular Acropora and Turbinaria. A bleached sea fan, a bleached-white anemone sector, and one stark-white branching colony are localized flags, not a site-wide signal, and a cushion star (a corallivore) rested among the soft corals.
Ang Ligpo Island ay higit na isang lugar ng malalambot na koral, espongha, at gorgonian kaysa sa matigas na koral, na may masinsing Dendronephthya, Sarcophyton, mga latag ng pumipintig na Xenia, at nakatayong barrel sponge sa isang mabatong dalisdis na katamtaman ang taas; kabilang sa mga matigas na koral dito ang tabular na Acropora at Turbinaria. Isang namuting sea fan, isang sektor ng namuputing anemone, at isang lantang-puting sumasangang kolonya ay mga lokal na palatandaan lamang, hindi senyales para sa buong lugar, at may isang cushion star (kumakain ng koral) na nakapahinga sa gitna ng malalambot na koral.
Salin ng buod na ito gamit ang AI; ang Ingles ang opisyal na bersyon.
Two 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 with its own page within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
23 of the 25 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
Setting
The photographs show a moderate-relief rocky slope of spurs and boulder faces falling into blue water, with sand and rubble aprons at its base and visibility varying from clear to distinctly green (e.g., Image 12, Image 24).
General benthic features
This is a soft-coral, sponge, and gorgonian site more than a stony-coral one: dense Dendronephthya in pink, cream, and white, leathery Sarcophyton, and Sinularia, pulsing Xenia fields, pale gorgonian sea fans, black coral bushes, and a run of large barrel sponges (Xestospongia testudinaria) standing off the slope, with Tubastraea sun corals crowding the shaded faces (e.g., Image 7, Image 8, Image 9, Image 10, Image 14, Image 20, Image 21, Image 22).
The deeper terrace is close to a continuous carpet of pale xeniid and nephtheid soft coral, the barrel sponges rising straight out of it (e.g., Image 13, Image 16, Image 17, Image 19).
The stony corals are nonetheless varied in genus richness — tabular and plating Acropora in stacked stands, foliose Montipora shelves, big scroll and vase Turbinaria, and massive Porites — and Anderson's own identifications single out Plerogyra bubble coral with its commensal shrimp, Stylophora, and the first record of Seriatopora caliendrum (e.g., Image 1, Image 3, Image 6, Image 11, Image 23, Image 25).
Coral cover
- Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
- Coral cover: 13% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 80 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
Three condition flags: a large sea fan that Anderson recorded as bleached (white-cream across the whole fan, beside a pigmented neighbor), a host anemone carrying a conspicuous bleached white sector, and one stark-white branching colony amid otherwise healthy growth. Anderson also photographed a cushion star (field identification: Culcita), a corallivore, resting among the soft corals. There is no site-wide bleaching signal, though localized old mortality, rubble, and algal turf run throughout (e.g., Image 2).
Fish and other fauna
Blue Linckia sea stars are frequent, an orange sea star patterned with white ocelli appears twice, a scorpionfish sits camouflaged among the Tubastraea, and anthias and chromis fill the water column (e.g., Image 5, Image 15).
Comparisons with other data
Pinheiro et al. (2019) surveyed this site (Ligpo Island Pinnacle), 0.08 km from the pin. Within 5 km, two Reef Check stations recorded station-year means of 57–70% hard coral cover in 2014; the nearest of these, Reef Check at Portulano Marine Sanctuary, 1.10 km away, read 57% in 2014.
Dive record
The first dive of the September 2016 Anilao trip, on the reef fringing Ligpo Island off Bauan at the north end of the Calumpan Peninsula; all 87 frames in the dive folder were reviewed (90 frames are on file).
CV model comparison
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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
DINOv3 and CoralSCOP were run on the site's photographs (see each row's n) and are listed for comparison. Coralscapes v2 is shown as its own row for comparison only: the author does not consider Coralscapes reliable for these photos, so it is low confidence and never enters any average or summary. No diver transect exists for this trip, so agreement between the rows is not accuracy, and no computer-vision method yet estimates coral cover accurately on new images; treat every row as indicative.| Method | Hard coral cover (%) | Photos (n) ± SE |
|---|---|---|
| In-house DINOv3 | 21.1 | n = 74 · SE 1.1 |
| CoralSCOP edited | 32.6 | n = 74 · SE 2.0 |
| Claude (edited photos) | 13.3 | n = 80 · SE 1.9 |
| Coralscapes v2 (low confidence, never averaged) | 61.1 |
The two computer-vision methods disagree by 11.5 pp (21.1–32.6%) and read 7.8–19.3 pp above Claude's blind point count (13.3%); the headline is Claude's blind point count because no transect or manual count exists here.
See a more detailed, stand-alone version of this table.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 2 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 2014. The most recent nearby survey is from 2014, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (13%) sits 44 points below the one survey station up to 2 km away (57%); 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), 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | Portulano Marine Sanctuary | 2014 | 57% | 1.10 km |
| Reef Check | Dive and Trek Marine Sanctuary | 2014 | 70% | 2.22 km |
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
- Pinheiro HT, Shepherd B, Castillo C, Abesamis RA, Copus JM, Pyle RL, et al. (2019). Deep reef fishes in the world's epicenter of marine biodiversity. Coral Reefs 38:985-995. DOI