The assessment 'toolbox': Community-based reef evaluation methods coupled with geochemical techniques to identify sources of stress

There have been few seminal advances in techniques of health evaluation of coral reefs since line transects and visual fish counting were first proposed in 1972, yet the rate of resource destruction increases rapidly. Especially in Third World settings, coastal communities need access to simple techniques that have been shown to identify stress on reefs: (1) Coral mortality indices, (2) Benthic bioindicators (stomatopods, forams, amphipods), …