decline in net community calcification by coral reef organisms would likely compromise the long-term persistence of many coral reef ecosystems because even the growth of healthy, undisturbed coral reefs are known to only slightly outpace rates of loss due to physical and biological erosion [see Glynn, 1997 for review]. As US coral reef monitoring initiatives increasingly consider incorporation of ocean acidification aspects into their designs, it’s important that these investments be strategically directed towards best informing our understanding of ecological consequences and feedbacks. Frequently, monitoring studies offer only limited capacity to discern specific agents of change. Indeed, a central challenge of field research is interpreting results amidst the sheer complexity of the natural environment where change reflects the net result of multiple factors. Still, there remains a desire to engineer diagnostic monitoring most capable of testing response predictions of coral reef ecosystems to ocean acidification as one means by which to identify potential refugia or “hot spots” and while no metric has been identified which is exclusively sensitive to OA alone, there is consensus that some are better than others. This report details those metrics and outlines the measurement requirements necessary to derive them. II. CROAMP WORKSHOP A working group of nearly fifty cross-disciplinary multinational federal and academic scientists was hosted by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and the National Coral Reef Institute at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center, Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystem Science, Dania Beach, FL on August 28-29, 2012. The workshop comprised 11
decline in net community calcification by coral reef organisms would likely compromise the long-term persistence of many coral reef ecosystems because even the growth of healthy, undisturbed coral reefs are known to only slightly outpace rates of loss due to physical and biological erosion [see Glynn, 1997 for review]. As US coral reef monitoring initiatives increasingly consider incorporation of ocean acidification aspects into their designs, it’s important that these investments be strategically directed towards best informing our understanding of ecological consequences and feedbacks. Frequently, monitoring studies offer only limited capacity to discern specific agents of change. Indeed, a central challenge of field research is interpreting results amidst the sheer complexity of the natural environment where change reflects the net result of multiple factors. Still, there remains a desire to engineer diagnostic monitoring most capable of testing response predictions of coral reef ecosystems to ocean acidification as one means by which to identify potential refugia or “hot spots” and while no metric has been identified which is exclusively sensitive to OA alone, there is consensus that some are better than others. This report details those metrics and outlines the measurement requirements necessary to derive them. II. CROAMP WORKSHOP A working group of nearly fifty cross-disciplinary multinational federal and academic scientists was hosted by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program and the National Coral Reef Institute at the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center, Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystem Science, Dania Beach, FL on August 28-29, 2012. The workshop comprised 11
Coral_Reef_Ocean_Acidification_Monitoring_Portfolio_Workshop_Report_20130719.docx