Mesophotic (30-60m) fishery-independent survey in St. Thomas and St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands from 2018-08-02 to 2022-12-16 (NCEI Accession 0276998)

This project employed specialized technical SCUBA diving methods to provide the first assessment of population dynamics and habitat-related life history of reef fishes on the mesophotic reef habitat in St. Thomas and St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands that can improve Caribbean island-based stock assessments. This project used NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) National Coral Reef Monitoring Program's (NCRMP) standardized Reef Visual Census (RVC) survey methods that were developed by multiple agencies over 35 years ago and adopted as the standard reef fish monitoring method in 2010 for the U.S. territories. Exact protocols can be referenced in peer-reviewed publications (e.g., Bohnsack and Bannerot, 1986; Ault et al. 2006; Smith et al. 2011). The mesophotic fishery-independent survey information extends the ongoing biennial NCRMP survey (0-30m) out to 60 meters along the insular shelf and expands the surveyed hard bottom habitat by 143%. Key fishery metrics (density, occurrence, abundance, biomass, size-structured abundance etc.) can be calculated using standard analytical survey techniques (Smith et al. 2011).