The datafile contains the results from expert elicitation utilized to develop narrative decision rules to discriminate between six levels of change in the biological condition along a gradient of increasing anthropogenic stress. The narrative rules for each of the Biological Condition Gradient (BCG) levels facilitated the evaluation of benthic communities in Caribbean coral reefs to provide specific narrative features experts proposed to detect changes in coral reef condition and biological integrity. These biological metrics and attributes for coral reef benthic organisms will allow evaluation of reef condition relative to undisturbed or minimally disturbed conditions.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Santavy, D., S. Jackson, B. Jessep, J. Gerritsen, C. Rogers, B. Fisher, E. Weil, A. Szmant, D. Cuevas, B. Walker, C. Jeffrey, P. Bradley, D. Ballantine, L. Roberson, H. Ruiz Torres, B. Todd, T. Smith, R. Clark, E. Diaz, J. Bauza-Ortega, C. Horstmann, and S. Raimondo. A biological condition gradient for coral reefs in the US Caribbean Territories: Part I. Coral narrative rules. ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, USA, 138: 108805, (2022).