At each of the 54 sites, three types of ecological data were collected by SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) divers. First, researchers collected underwater photographs of the reef surface along one 10 meter (m) x 1 m benthic transect, which was used to quantify percent cover by corals and other benthic constituents. From each transect, 9 to 17 non-overlapping photographs were input into the web-based point-count program CoralNet (
https://coralnet.ucsd.edu/), where researchers identified the benthos at 75 points placed randomly on each image. The researchers then calculated the percent cover of individual benthic constituents for each transect as the arithmetic mean of percent cover across the analyzed frames. Second, along the same 10 m x 1 m transect, researchers counted the number of bioeroding urchins from four species (Echinometra lucunter, Echinometra viridis, Diadema antillarium, and Eucidaris tribuloides) and five size classes based on test size (0–20 millimeter [mm], 21–40 mm, 41–60 mm, 61–80 mm, and 81–100 mm) (after Perry and others, 2012). Third, visual census data of seven species of parrotfish (Scarus vetula, Scarus taeniopterus, Scarus iserti, Sparisoma viride, Sparisoma aurofrenatum, Sparisoma rubripinne, and Sparisoma chrysopterum) were collected along two 30 m x 4 m transects, spaced at a minimum of 10 meters apart at each site. The parrotfish observations for each species were recorded for each of eight size class (based on fork length) and two life phase categories (Initial Phase: 5-14 centimeters [cm], 15-24 cm, 25-34 cm, and 35-44 cm; Terminal Phase: 15-24 cm, 25-34 cm, 35-44 cm, and >44 cm; after Perry and others, 2012).
