The Ecological Monitoring program is designed to give you an introduction to coral reef ecology and how to view the reef scientifically by assessing key biotic and abiotic reef components. The course teaches you how to use real world scientific sampling and reef survey techniques and certifies you to conduct your own surveys and report data back to the online database. Parameters assessed include fish and invertebrate abundance and biodiversity, substrate cover, coral taxonomy, coral diseases, coral bleaching, and more. This course is a prerequisite for many of the other courses offered by Conservation Diver.
This course closely follows the Ecological Monitoring Program Manual. It is intended to be used alongside the manual, as a sort of review and way to explore more in-depth intro topics as well as provide a review. Please ensure that you have a copy of the manual with you while you go through this. We recommend you first read the relevant chapter in the manual, and then proceed to complete the associated course section.
If you have not done so already, please have a look at this video overview of what you will learn in this course:
The Ecological Monitoring Program Manual
