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Fig. 5. Cumulative standard deviations (of arcsine square-root transformed data) for randomised hard coral cover for the six methods. Note that for MAP, PHOTP and PHOTS, replicates are single quadrats, whereas for VIDEO they are single frames and for LIT and LPT they are 5 m sections.  Assuming MAP to provide the best estimate of benthic cover, the accuracies of the five other methods were evaluated as the differences between cover values estimated by each and the values determined by MAP (Table 1). Overall, among the other methods, VIDEO appears to be the most accurate, followed by PHOTP.  Hard coral cover was most accurately estimated by VIDEO and least accurately by LPT, with all photo- graphic methods tending to underestimate hard coral   On comparison with MAP, PHOTP appeared to give the most accurate estimates of cover by different hard coral growth forms, followed by PHOTS (Table 3), with the least accurate being obtained by LPT, LIT and VIDEO. PHOTP and PHOTS underestimated the cover of both branching and encrusting coral, and PHOTS the cover of massive corals (Fig. 3). LPT, LIT and VIDEO over- estimated the cover of massive corals and underestimated the cover of encrusting corals. Kruskal—Wallis tests

Figure 5 Cumulative standard deviations (of arcsine square-root transformed data) for randomised hard coral cover for the six methods. Note that for MAP, PHOTP and PHOTS, replicates are single quadrats, whereas for VIDEO they are single frames and for LIT and LPT they are 5 m sections. Assuming MAP to provide the best estimate of benthic cover, the accuracies of the five other methods were evaluated as the differences between cover values estimated by each and the values determined by MAP (Table 1). Overall, among the other methods, VIDEO appears to be the most accurate, followed by PHOTP. Hard coral cover was most accurately estimated by VIDEO and least accurately by LPT, with all photo- graphic methods tending to underestimate hard coral On comparison with MAP, PHOTP appeared to give the most accurate estimates of cover by different hard coral growth forms, followed by PHOTS (Table 3), with the least accurate being obtained by LPT, LIT and VIDEO. PHOTP and PHOTS underestimated the cover of both branching and encrusting coral, and PHOTS the cover of massive corals (Fig. 3). LPT, LIT and VIDEO over- estimated the cover of massive corals and underestimated the cover of encrusting corals. Kruskal—Wallis tests