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Reef Check surveys in IRAN Reef Check is a coral reef conservation and volunteer program that has been enthusiastically supported by hundreds of scientists and thousands divers around the world. Reef Check is active in over 40 countries and territories throughout the tropical world and dedicated to achieve the following goals:
Reef Check Headquarters is located at the Institute of the Environment, University of California at Los Angeles, USA. INCO has been brought Iran into the network of almost 50 countries carrying out Reef Check surveys in July 1999. In this program, different data includes the number of live and dead hard coral, soft coral, substrate type, fish species typically targeted by spear fishermen and aquarium collectors and invertebrate species typically targeted as food or decorative items were collected along two transect at 8 m and 13 m depths contours and after analyzing was sent to the Reef Check center at Hong Kong University. Actually conducting Reef Check surveys in all Iranian Coastal area has been determined as most important priorities of Marine Living Science Department of INCO. In this regard and because of important of Kish Island as the first Iranian free zone, we surveyed this area in years 2001,2002 and 2004.
Kish Island is surrounded by hard corals, which have subjected to different natural and human impacts. Study of distribution and status of corals using manta tow technique shows that the best live hard coral coverage was found on north and northeastern margin of the island. Sandy flats and alteration of live and dead corals was commonly observed around the Kish Island. After determine coral reefs distribution patterns with above technique ,one site with high coral covrage was selcted namly ,Big Coral. And then in two depth (3-6m and 6-12m) four 20 meter length transect with 5m gaps between them was deployed using SCUBA diving. Then three types of data was recorded in each 20m transect include:. 1) Fish belt transect in 5 m wide containing species typically targeted by fishermen, aquarium collectors and others. This is the first survey to be performed. 2) Invertebrate belt transect in 5 m wide four 5 m wide containing species typically targeted as food species or collected as curios. 3) Substrate line transect, points are sampled at 0.5 m intervals to determine the substrate types on the reef. Finally data of site was recorded at Site description data sheet and then all data according separate identifiable codes was sent to reef chech headquarter. Underwater Image sheets which used for recording of data in the Persian Gulf:
Results of Reef Check Survey in Kish Island: Studying the status of corals using Reef Check core method showed that the shallower depths (8m) supports higher biodiversity of reef fishes and invertebrates as well as higher rates of hard coral growth in comparing to deeper part of reef slop (13m). In terms of species diversity ,we can identified about 28 hard corals that Acroporidae is most abundant and Favidae is most diverse scleractinians corals. Damages such as bleaching occurred in the coral community tends to be the consequent result of natural and human induced impacts. Destruction of corals specially of branching types around the perimeter of the island was observed due to a huge storm occurred in 1996 followed by alternative weakening of corals as a result of natural and human impacts. Rate of anchor damage was higher in deeper part of slop (13m) while the corals of shallower part were damaged mostly due to uncontrolled recreational activities. Most of substrate composition in Kish Island has been constituted from sand and rock. Live coral coverage is about %13 and about % 4 of Kish hard corals had dead.
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