Dataset: Bocas del Toro 2021 macroinvertebrate counts from August to September 2021 (Coral microbiome resilience project)

Ecological surveys were conducted in the Bahía Almirante region of Bocas del Toro, Panama, in August and September 2021. The Bahía Almirante is a semi-enclosed lagoon that has experienced widespread ecological degradation from anthropogenic stressors such as eutrophication, tourism development, overfishing, and hypoxia, making it an ideal system for monitoring the resilience of coral reef communities under high levels of environmental stress.

Ten sites within the Bahía were selected for monitoring due to their previously documented responses to hypoxia. Surveys were performed on shallow coral reefs at three depths characterized by distinct coral and benthic community compositions: 10, 20, and 40 feet (3, 6, and 12 meters). All data were collected visually in situ on SCUBA by four observers familiar with coral and benthic reef surveys.

Macroinvertebrates, including sea cucumbers, sea stars, and long-spined sea urchins, are ecologically important reef species that can serve as indicators of reef health. Because of their sparse distributions, macroinvertebrates were counted and identified to species along 15 × 2 meter sections of 50 meter permanent transects to capture their densities at a reef-wide scale. Observers swam along transects using SCUBA and non-destructively recorded and identified any macroinvertebrate within 1 meter of each side of the transect. Each observed macroinvertebrate was also measured for maximum length (e.g., sea cucumbers) or test diameter (e.g., sea urchins and sea stars).