Help us determine a reef's diversity

July 5, 2009 Tell a Friend Comments (1)

Today on our snorkel at Turtle Rocks we observed the fish diversity on a natural reef. Turtle Rocks is a natural reef. This particular reef is a series of rocks stretching a mile in length and around 79 yards wide. This reef is a coral reef full of brain, fire, red star, purple porites coral and an abundance of sea fans also inhabited the reef. We are researching the diversity of natural reefs vs. artificial reefs, such as shipwrecks. To prepare for our snorkel we paired with our buddies and were given a dive slate. We used our dive slates to record all the fish we identified.

On our dive, we saw an amazing amount of fish, rays and even a shark. Some fish that we saw were Gray Snapper, Stoplight Parrotfish, hogfish, squirrelfish, damselfish, Queen Angelfish, Banded Butterfly fish, a Nurse Shark, Spotted Eagle Rays, a Spotted Moray Eel and two octopi. Our dive of the natural reef proved to us that natural reefs are home to a bounty of fish & marine creatures alike.

We would like to compare the fish diversity in natural and artificial reefs. Do you have any ideas for methods for collecting data? What data should we collect to determine a difference in diversity between natural and artificial reefs?

Brock Malenke
M.C. Hannon

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Anonymous on July 6, 2009 12:24 PM

If you are looking to discover the diversity difference between natural and artificial reefs, you might be able to start by collecting lists of the species you find at each. For example, as you have your next snorkel at one of the shipwrecks you can take the dive slates and mark down the species you find, and later get the total species among the group. The same can then be done at a natural reef dive to compare. This is just a starting point and could be done at several natural and artificial dive sites to get a more accurate result. Have fun!