FORAMINIFERA AS BIOINDICATORS IN CORAL REEF ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING: A CD-BASED USER'S MANUAL

Coral reef communities are threatened worldwide. Resource managers require indicators of biological condition of reef environments that can relate remote-sensing, water-quality and benthic-community monitoring data to stress responses in reef organisms. The "FORAM" (Foraminifers in Reef Assessment and Monitoring) Index is based on 30 years of research on reef sediments and reef-dwelling foraminifers: 1) foraminifers are widely used as environmental and paleoenvironmental indicators in many contexts, 2) reef-building, zooxanthellate corals and foraminifers with algal symbionts have similar water-quality requirements, 3) the relatively short life spans of foraminifers as compared with long-lived colonial corals facilitates differentiation between long-term water-quality decline and episodic stress events, 4) foraminifers are relatively small and abundant, permitting statistically significant sample sizes to be collected relatively inexpensively, ideally as a component of comprehensive monitoring programs, 5) collection of foraminifers has minimal impact on reef resources. The FORAM Index (FI) utilizes foraminiferal assemblages from surface sediments of reef-associated environments. The index can provide resource managers with a simple metric for determining the suitability of benthic environments for communities dominated by algal symbiotic organisms. It can be applied independently or incorporated into existing monitoring efforts. It involves simple calculations that require limited computer capabilities and can be readily applied to reef-associated environments worldwide. In addition, the foraminiferal shells collected can be subjected to morphometric and geochemical analyses in areas of suspected heavy-metal pollution, and the data sets can be used with other monitoring data in detailed multidimensional assessments. Resource managers and monitoring agencies will benefit from a CD-ROM based manual containing user-friendly, comprehensive data bases which include bibliographies of literature presenting foraminifera as bioindicators, discussions of applications for a variety of scenarios, and image libraries of key taxa. Scanning electron micrographs and light microscopy photos illustrate key taxa and document common anomalies in foraminiferal tests.