Improving data collection, storage, handling, visualization, and analyses for Micronesia's coral reef monitoring programs : a guidebook with step-by-step exercise using regional datasets to improve local capacity for data interpretation

Statistically-sound science is required to assess the status of regional and local management efforts ranging from community-based marine protected areas to expansive regional networks defined by the Micronesian Challenge. Despite having common goals of protecting their resources for future generations, jurisdictions throughout Micronesia strongly differ in their approach used to monitor coral reefs, and thus, in the information that is available for managers to act upon. This is, in part, due to unequal funding and capacity distributed throughout the region. As of 2009, monitoring throughout Micronesia ranged from reef-check surveys conducted by governmental and recreational divers in Kosrae, to seven-year programs supporting multiple trained biologists in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau. Accordingly the questions being answered, statistical power to detect change, and the precision of the data differ considerably (Houk and van Woesik, 2006; Houk 2009; Waddell and Clarke, 2008).