Benthic Cover from Automated Annotation of Benthic Images Collected at Coral Reef Sites in the Pacific Remote Island Areas and American Samoa in 2018

Description

The coral reef benthic community data described here result from the automated annotation (classification) of benthic images collected during photoquadrat surveys conducted by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD, formerly the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division) as part of NOAA's ongoing National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). SCUBA divers conducted benthic photoquadrat surveys in coral reef habitats according to protocols established by ESD and NCRMP during the ESD-led NCRMP mission to the islands and atolls of the Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIA) and American Samoa from June 8 to August 11, 2018. Still photographs were collected with a high-resolution digital camera mounted on a pole to document the benthic community composition at predetermined points along transects at stratified random sites surveyed only once as part of Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys for corals and fish and permanent sites established by ESD and resurveyed every ~3 years for climate change monitoring. Overall, 30 photoquadrat images were collected at each survey site.

The benthic habitat images were quantitatively analyzed using the web-based, machine-learning, image annotation tool, CoralNet (https://coralnet.ucsd.edu; Beijbom et al. 2015). Ten points were randomly overlaid on each image and the machine-learning algorithm "robot" identified the organism or type of substrate beneath, with 300 annotations (points) generated per site. Benthic elements falling under each point were identified to functional group (Tier 1: hard coral, soft coral, sessile invertebrate, macroalgae, crustose coralline algae, and turf algae) for coral, algae, invertebrates, and other taxa following Lozada-Misa et al. (2017). These benthic data can ultimately be used to produce estimates of community composition, relative abundance (percentage of benthic cover), and frequency of occurrence.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
PIFSC_H-17-02_2017_SOP_ImageAnalysis_CN.pdf Unknown PIFSC Administrative Report, January 2017: Analysis of benthic survey images via CoralNet : a summary of standard operating procedures and guidelines Open resource
BIA_CNET_ROBOT_2018.csv Unknown Benthic community data generated from automated annotation of benthic photoquadrat images by a trained robot in CoralNet that were collected at random and permanent survey sites across the Pacific Remote Island Areas and American Samoa in 2018 by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Ecosystem Sciences Division as part of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program. Open resource
CoralNet Unknown CoralNet Home Page Open resource
Ecosystem Sciences Division Unknown NOAA Fisheries, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center website Open resource
NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program Unknown NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) website. Open resource
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords Unknown The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. Open resource
Full Metadata Record Unknown View the complete metadata record on InPort for more information about this dataset. Open resource
NOAA Data Management Plan (DMP) PDF NOAA Data Management Plan for this record on InPort. Open resource
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Website Unknown Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center homepage Open resource

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