Integrating underwater photo transects and environmental DNA to assess coral genus composition in nearshore reefs of Madura, Indonesia
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Understanding coral community composition is essential for reef conservation, particularly in data-limited tropical regions such as Indonesia. This study compares genus-level coral detections from Underwater Photo Transect surveys and environmental DNA metabarcoding on nearshore reefs of Gili Genting and Gili Labak, Madura, Indonesia. Because the molecular component was a preliminary site-level survey using limited water volume and a descriptive presence-absence interpretation, we treat its results as exploratory signals rather than definitive evidence of local occurrence. The photographic survey recorded visually dominant reef-building genera, including Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, and Porites, whereas environmental DNA detected fewer genera and only partly overlapped with the visual records. Several genera were detected only by environmental DNA, including Siderastrea, Madrepora, and Leptoria, but these records should be interpreted cautiously because they may reflect low DNA concentration, primer bias, hydrodynamic transport, contamination, or taxonomic misassignment. The results indicate that photographic transects provided stronger information on visible coral cover and dominant community structure, while environmental DNA offered a supplementary, though currently limited, signal of potential additional coral taxa. Integrating visual surveys and molecular screening may improve coral monitoring when supported by replicated water sampling, full read-count reporting, curated reference databases, and rigorous contamination controls.
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