Benthic, urchin, and fish observation data collected using multiple methodologies to calculate coral reef carbonate budget estimates for sites in American Samoa in 2023 (NCEI Accession 0302849)

This data package includes the benthic, urchin, and fish observation data collected for coral reef carbonate budget assessments by the Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) of NOAA's Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) at fixed sites across American Samoa in 2023. These data were collected as part of a three-year methods development and pilot project funded by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) in order to establish a standardized carbonate budget methodology for the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) in the U.S. Pacific Islands. Observational data were collected at the same sites using established Indo-Pacific ReefBudget methodology (Perry et al. 2018), as well as experimental methodologies that leverage existing NCRMP data streams. Benthic survey data (genus/species, morphology, and surface distance of corals, crustose coralline algae, macroalgae, and other benthic components) and urchin survey data (genus/species, test size, and abundance of bioeroding urchins) were collected using Indo-Pacific Reef Budget-style transects, "chords" transects located within the 12-m diameter circular footprint covered by NCRMP Structure-from-Motion imagery, and virtual transects in fixed site Structure-from-Motion models. Fish survey data (genus/species, count, and size) were collected using Indo-Pacific ReefBudget belt transects, stationary point count surveys conducted at fixed sites, and averaging stationary point count survey data using stratified random survey design around a set distance of the fixed sites.

The raw data in this data package were utilized with referential databases to calculate coral reef carbonate budget estimates for Pacific regions. These databases can be found in the Documentation for this package; the two databases include a calcification rates referential database (developed & customized for the U.S. Pacific Islands region from the Indo-Pacific ReefBudget calcification rates database, accessible on the GitHub repository for this project), as well as a referential database of grazing estimates for herbivorous fishes in Pacific Islands regions (NCEI Accession 0259399). Other relevant scripts for producing carbonate budget estimates from raw data and referential data are also available on this project's GitHub repository.