Citation:

PANGAEA.996233 (dataset in review)

Name: Okinawa Island-wide coral bleaching survey in February 2026
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: benthic communities; Coral Bleaching; Coral Reef

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Abstract:

Point-intercept benthic survey data were collected in February 2026 at seven reef sites around Okinawa Island: Chinazaki, KGV, Uppama Beach, Oura Bay, Ginowan, Bise, and Apogama. Surveys were conducted in shallow and deeper reef zones using five 20 m transects per depth zone. Benthic observations were recorded at 0.25 m intervals, resulting in 80 observation points per transect.

Keyword(s):

benthic communities; Coral Bleaching; Coral Reef

Related to:

Kimura, Lucas Yutaka; Gomez, Rickdane; Nakamura, Takashi (in press): Prolonged thermal stress drives unprecedented coral bleaching beyond the typical summer period in Okinawa Island, Japan. Marine Ecology Progress Series

Funding:

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), grant/award no. KAKENHI Grant Number 23H03560

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), grant/award no. KAKENHI Grant Number 26K03095

Coverage:

Median Latitude: 26.470269 * Median Longitude: 127.925735 * South-bound Latitude: 26.187094 * West-bound Longitude: 127.745211 * North-bound Latitude: 26.712536 * East-bound Longitude: 128.156775

Date/Time Start: 2026-02-01T02:50:00 * Date/Time End: 2026-02-25T02:25:00

Minimum DEPTH, water: 2.0 m * Maximum DEPTH, water: 10.0 m

Event(s):

Apogama_Deep_2026-02 * Latitude: 26.499553 * Longitude: 127.840819 * Date/Time Start: 2026-02-25T02:25:00 * Date/Time End: 2026-02-25T03:05:00 * Elevation: -9.8 m * Location: Okinawa Island, Japan * Campaign: * Method/Device: Digital camera, underwater (DIGICAM_u)

Apogama_Shallow_2026-02 * Latitude: 26.499553 * Longitude: 127.840819 * Date/Time Start: 2026-02-25T01:55:00 * Date/Time End: 2026-02-25T02:25:00 * Elevation: -2.3 m * Location: Okinawa Island, Japan * Campaign: * Method/Device: Digital camera, underwater (DIGICAM_u)

Bise_Deep_2026-02 * Latitude: 26.712536 * Longitude: 127.881069 * Date/Time Start: 2026-02-22T03:02:00 * Date/Time End: 2026-02-22T03:21:00 * Elevation: -9.2 m * Location: Okinawa Island, Japan * Campaign: * Method/Device: Digital camera, underwater (DIGICAM_u)

Parameter(s):

#	Name	Short Name	Unit	Principal Investigator	Method/Device	Comment
1	Event label	Event		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka
2	LATITUDE	Latitude		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Geocode
3	LONGITUDE	Longitude		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Geocode
4	DEPTH, water	Depth water	m	Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Recorded during field survey	Geocode
5	DATE/TIME	Date/Time		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Geocode
6	Site	Site		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Name of the coral reef survey site.
7	Depth zone	Depth zone		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Categorical variable indicating the shallow or deep survey zone.
8	Transect	Transect		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Identifier for one of five replicate 20-m transects within each site and reef depth zone.
9	Distance	Distance	m	Kimura, Lucas Yutaka		Distance from the starting point of the 20 m transect to each point-intercept observation, recorded at 0.25 m intervals.
10	Taxon/taxa	Taxa		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Post-survey assessment using photographs	Genus-level identification of the organism recorded at the observation point, where identification was possible.
11	Family	Family		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Post-survey assessment using photographs	Family-level identification of the organism recorded at the observation point, where identification was possible.
12	Substrate type	Substrate		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Post-survey assessment using photographs	General benthic substrate category recorded at each observation point.
13	Morphology	Morphology		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Post-survey assessment using photographs	Morphological category assigned to hard corals recorded at the observation point.
14	Bleaching severity	Bleaching sev		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka	Post-survey assessment using photographs	Ordinal category describing bleaching severity: 1 = non-bleached; 2 = minor bleaching, with 1–50% of the colony or organism surface bleached or visibly pale; 3 = severe bleaching, with 51–100% of the colony or organism surface bleached; and 4 = recently dead, indicated for scleractinian corals by visible algal overgrowth on recently exposed coral skeleton.
15	Comment	Comment		Kimura, Lucas Yutaka

License:

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0) (License comes into effect after moratorium ends)

Status:

Curation Level: Enhanced curation (CurationLevelC)

Size:

36772 data points

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