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Biological cover denotes the dominant biological component colonizing the seafloor in a polygon. Habitat features smaller than smaller than the minimum mapping unit (100m²) were not considered. Five major cover types were identified in the project area (i.e., Algae, Mangrove, Seagrass, Live Hard and Soft Corals and No Cover) and combined with three modifiers describing the distribution of the dominant cover within the polygon (i.e., 10%-50%, 50%-90%, and 90%-100%). Areas where biological cover was indistinguishable from the remote sensing imagery were classified as Unknown. It is important to note that this modifier represents a measure of patchiness of the biological cover at the polygon scale. It does not denote the density of organisms seen in the underwater video or photos. For example, a seagrass bed can be described as covering 90%-100% of a given polygon, but may have sparse densities of shoots in the underwater video. |