### BISA97 — Salomon
**CRD page:** [Salomon Islands Coral Survey Sites (Apr 26–30, 2015)](https://coralreefdiagnostics.com/salomon-20150426-to-0430)

**26 Apr 2015**
**GPS:** 5.31676°S, 72.23729°E
**Setting:** protected submerged channel patch reef, 10.6 m (leeward in the master workbook — see Flag 4)
**Coral cover:** 54.4% (2 formal transects, D2–D3; **algal cover 23.7%**) · **published image bleaching:** 8.8%
**Live hard coral cover across methods:** formal transects 54.4% · CoralNet points 37.1% · Coralscapes masks 30.3% (17 frames). These products have different sampling footprints and denominators and should not be averaged.
**Temperature:** 30.8 °C · **Salinity:** 34.4
**Photo review:** all 17 frames examined
**Representative photos:** P4260862.jpg, P4260916.jpg, P4260838.jpg, P4260914.jpg, P4260837.jpg

BISA97 is the shallowest site in this batch at 10.6 m, the warmest at 30.8 °C, and by some margin the most taxonomically even. Coral cover is 54.4% (18th of 109) against 23.7% algae (103rd of 109 — among the least algal reefs in the archipelago), and the assemblage carries **28 non-zero coral genera** with no single genus taking more than 38% of the coral.

***Acropora* leads at 20.91% of the benthos — 38% of all coral** — but ***Porites* at 10.96% and *Goniopora* at 5.00%** are substantial, and the fleshy and massive component is unusually well represented: ***Merulina* 3.86%**, *Goniastrea* 3.05%, *Lobophyllia* 2.09%, *Favia* 1.46%, *Galaxea* 0.88% and *Pavona* 0.75%. Sixteen further genera fall below 0.5%, including *Isopora*, *Ctenactis*, *Halomitra*, *Pachyseris* and *Millepora*. Non-coral invertebrates hold 11.0% of the benthos, bare substrate 10.9%, coralline algae 9.9%, turf 7.4% and macroalgae 2.8%.

**The two transects differ in composition more than in cover.** D2 carries 50.8% coral across 21 genera and is the *Acropora* band — 28.25%, with *Porites* 11.50% and *Goniastrea* 3.25%. D3 carries slightly more coral at 58.0% across 22 genera but the order flattens completely: *Acropora* falls to 13.57% while *Porites* holds 10.43%, ***Goniopora* rises to 10.00% and *Merulina* to 7.71%***. The deeper band is therefore both higher in cover and far more evenly shared — a pattern opposite to most sites in this batch.

The reef has strong local continuity. P4260862 shows numerous compact branching colonies packed across the substrate with little open sand; P4260885 and P4260913 add large massive and lobate colonies; P4260915 and P4260917 show tables and corymbose fields extending into the middle distance; and P4260927 shows the assemblage continuing across a broad shallow surface. Crevices remain between colonies, but living coral occupies much of the visible hard bottom in most frames. The benthic palette includes pink and purple encrusting surfaces, brown foliose growth, small meandroid colonies and smooth massive heads — the visible counterpart to an 11.0% non-coral invertebrate figure and a genus list this long.

**Bleaching is evident across multiple growth forms, and this is the most affected site of the batch at 8.8% (37th of 98).** P4260838 shows several compact and thick-branched colonies uniformly cream-white while adjacent colonies retain brown, purple or green pigmentation. **P4260916 centres a very large table-like colony pale to white across nearly the entire plate with intact radial branch texture** — an unambiguous, high-confidence case. Other wide frames contain scattered white colonies including pale tables and compact branches, and the recurrence across the sequence supports a genuine site condition rather than one anomalous subject. Pale massive colonies and isolated branch tips were deliberately not flagged, since natural coloration, bright shallow illumination at 10.6 m and active growth could all contribute.

Fish use the coral relief heavily. P4260913 and P4260914 show schools of small fishes concentrated around a large bommie with larger reef fishes above the structure, and P4260925 shows another school in open blue water beyond the coral field. These indicate active habitat use but cannot give standardised density, biomass or richness, and no individual count is inferred from repeated adjacent frames.

<b>Assemblage composition.</b> Formal surveys give 54.4% coral, 23.7% algae and 11.0% non-coral invertebrates across 28 genera, led by *Acropora* in the shallow band and shared between *Porites*, *Goniopora* and *Merulina* in the deeper one. The photographs document a densely packed shallow coral garden with massive heads, tables, foliose forms and heavy encrustation, plus convincing bleaching in both branching colonies and one large table.

**Flags:** (1) **This is a two-transect site** (D2, D3) with no deep band, so nothing here describes the reef below ~15 m. (2) **The deeper transect is the more even one** — *Acropora* 13.57% against *Goniopora* 10.00% and *Merulina* 7.71%. The site-level 20.91% *Acropora* figure overstates its dominance at depth. (3) **A large lobate colony in P4260886 shows mixed pigmentation across rounded protrusions**, but the pattern is not specific enough to support a disease call and is not flagged as one. (4) **Exposure differs between sources.** `BIOT-1-MASTER-WkBk.xlsx` records *leeward*; the published `exposure-revised` column records *protected*. The Setting line uses the revised value for corpus consistency; the master value is preserved rather than silently converted. (5) The `Mean(%bleaching)` source column carries at least one known bad value (BITB58 at 22.22% where the corrected figure is 0.77%), so the rank is approximate. (6) No crown-of-thorns starfish or discrete feeding scar was identified in the 17 stills; old dead framework is visibly encrusted and texturally rough, which is what distinguishes it from the clean white surfaces of the bleached colonies. (7) **NON-CANONICAL BLEACHING RANK — added 2026-08-26.** Any "of 98" bleaching rank above was computed off the site table's `Mean(%bleaching)` column, which equals the **1st** CoralNet training run. Anderson's decision of 2026-08-26 (HOW_TO rule 4e) makes **`% bleaching (2nd training)` canonical**, The file carries TWO pools for it, and they are not interchangeable: a **110-row pool** ranking every dive (revisit dives included, so BIPB70B/72B/69C compete) and a **99-site pool** ranking one value per site. The rank quoted below is on the 110-row dive pool. For this site the canonical value is **8.82%, rank 45 of 110** (1st training: 8.82%, rank 44 of 110). The two runs agree to <0.05 pp on 100 of 110 rows and diverge only on the bleaching-onset dives, so for most sites the distinction changes the rank but not the number.

**Benthic data:** [Download BISA97 benthic survey data (CSV)](../benthic_data/BISA97_benthic.csv) — scleractinian cover by genus with full names, plus substrate and algal categories (bare substrate, CCA, turf, macroalgae, invertebrates), from the LOF BIOT-1 survey (Mayfield & Dempsey 2026, *Oceans*, supplemental file S1).