NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division, National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish in the U.S. Pacific Islands

Sampling event
Latest version published by United States Geological Survey on Aug 25, 2021 United States Geological Survey

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 15,614 records in English (70 MB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (10 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (10 KB)

Description

The stationary point count (nSPC) method is used by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD; formerly the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division) to conduct reef fish surveys in the Hawaiian and Mariana Archipelagos, American Samoa, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas. The first iteration of the nSPC surveys were conducted as part of the Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) from 2008-2012. In 2013 the reef fish surveys, and Pacific RAMP, became part of the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). The nSPC method catalogs the diversity (species richness), abundance (numeric density) and biomass (fish mass per unit area) of diurnally active reef fish assemblages in shallow-water (less than 30 m) hard-bottom habitats. Visual estimates of benthic cover and topographic complexity are also recorded, with benthic organisms grouped into broad functional categories (e.g., 'Hard Coral', 'Macroalgae'). A stratified random sampling (StRS) design is employed to survey the coral reef ecosystems throughout the U.S.-Pacific regions. For all regions, the survey domain encompasses the majority of the mapped area of reef and hard bottom habitats and the stratification includes island, reef zone, and depth, with the exception of the Main Hawaiian Islands that includes habitat structure type as well. Sampling effort is allocated based on strata area. Reef fish and benthic estimate data provided in this data set were primarily collected during ESD-led research cruises funded by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) as part of Pacific RAMP or NCRMP. Additionally, data collected during Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument led research cruises to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from 2007 to 2017, and PIFSC annual Reef Fish Survey cruises from 2014 to 2016 in Guam, the main Hawaiian Islands, and American Samoa, respectively, are also included as these data are funded separately from but are complementary to the CRCP-funded data.

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 15,614 records.

2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Event (core)
15614
ExtendedMeasurementOrFact 
5800583
Occurrence 
698970

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Williams I, DesRochers A (2020). NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division, National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish in the U.S. Pacific Islands. Version 1.2. United States Geological Survey. Sampling event dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/tk1hwm

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is United States Geological Survey. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: f56fb306-32e4-4b96-a381-6b87c186ad0f.  United States Geological Survey publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Samplingevent

Contacts

Ivor Williams
  • Originator
  • Research Fish Biologist
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Annette DesRochers
  • Metadata Provider
  • Data Steward
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Tye Kindinger
  • Point Of Contact
  • Supervisory Coral Reef Ecosystems Researcher
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Jake Asher
  • Point Of Contact
  • Marine Ecosystems Research Specialist
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Abby Benson
  • Publisher
  • Biologist
U.S. Geological Survey
Sarah Bingo
  • Processor
  • Data Manager
Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2017). Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Stratified Random Surveys (StRS) of Reef Fish, including Benthic Estimate Data of the U.S. Pacific Reefs from 2008-01-27 to 2012-09-13 (NCEI Accession 0162472). NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://accession.nodc.noaa.gov/0162472
  2. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument; Ecosystem Sciences Division, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2018). Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish at coral reef sites across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands from 2007-09-21 to 2012-08-19, including benthic estimate data from 2011 to 2012. (NCEI Accession 0178974). NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://accession.nodc.noaa.gov/0178974
  3. NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division (2018). National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish, including benthic estimate data of American Samoa. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7289/v5tb1564
  4. NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division (2018). National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish, including benthic estimate data of the Pacific Remote Island Areas. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7289/v58c9tkb
  5. NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division (2018). National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish, including benthic estimate data of the Mariana Archipelago. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7289/v5c827m0
  6. NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division (2018). National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Stratified random surveys (StRS) of reef fish, including benthic estimate data of the Hawaiian Archipelago. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7289/v59c6vr5

Additional Metadata

marine, harvest by iOBIS

Alternative Identifiers f56fb306-32e4-4b96-a381-6b87c186ad0f
https://www1.usgs.gov/obis-usa/ipt/resource?r=ncrmp_nspc_fish_pacific