Baited Remote Underwater Video Station (BRUVS) Surveys of Fish in the Hawaiian Archipelago from 2012 to 2014

A type of remote video system used by NOAA's Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) is the baited remote underwater video station (BRUVS). The BRUVS was developed and several have been used widely by Euan Harvey, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Western Australia and the Australia Institute of Marine Science. BRUVS are similar to existing BotCam technology, but are more suitable for deployment on coral reef systems because they are smaller, lighter, and can be deployed closer to the substrate. Supported by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CRCP), ESD uses BRUVS to conduct fish surveys to depths of ~100 m.

Each BRUVS uses high-definition video cameras mounted 0.7 m apart on a base bar that is inwardly converged at 8°, set up as a stereo-video system. The video images from the cameras are subsequently analyzed to identify fish species and to determine fish sizes. The use of bait attracts a wide diversity of fish species into the field of view of the cameras, but ESD is also experimenting with unbaited deployments.

The data provided in this data set—including fish species, counts, and lengths—were generated from the analysis of video footage from BRUVS surveys conducted during PIFSC missions in the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) in September 2012 and November 2013, and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) in May and September 2014. Targeted fishes for measurement in the MHI included: all large-bodied predatory species, including sharks (Carcharhinidae), jacks (Carangidae), snappers (Lutjanidae), and the Hawaiian grouper (Cephalopholis argus. Select parrotfishes (Scarinae), goatfishes, chubs (Kyphosidae), and surgeonfishes (Acanthuridae) were also identified by PIFSC as species of interest. Targeted fishes for measurement in the NWHI included: all large-bodied predatory species, including sharks (Carcharhinidae), jacks (Carangidae), and the snapper Aprion virescens.

Data are primarily collected to obtain a greater understanding of coral reef fish and roving predator populations between 0-100 m depths.

Asher J.M., Williams I. & Harvey E. (2017). Mesophotic Depth Gradients Impact Reef Fish Assemblage Composition and Functional Group Partitioning in the Main Hawaiian Islands. Frontiers in Marine Science, 4, 98.

Asher, J., Williams, I. D., & Harvey, E. S. (2017). An assessment of mobile predator populations along shallow and mesophotic depth gradients in the Hawaiian archipelago. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 3905.

BRUVS surveys have also been conducted at Guam and Galvez Bank in the Mariana Archipelago, and at Tutuila in American Samoa. The video footage from those surveys are currently being analyzed and, once complete, will be included with this dataset.

Dataset includes the following information: location, site, frame number, time, period, analyst, depth, substrate, habitat, habitat complexity, benthic cover, fish species and fish count, whether the species is endemic, life cycle stage, and size (length).

While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of the current state of the art, NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty.

Select locations in the Hawaiian Archipelago

Not applicable

Not applicable

NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

CREP welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. CREP has a very diverse set of field activities that generates large volumes of data using an array of data collection protocols.

The following recommendations are for your consideration as you use this data:

1) Data analyses should take all field exigencies into account. The most effective way to do this would be active collaboration with CREP principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by CREP, proper acknowledgement of both CREP and the individuals responsible for data collection is expected. Citing the DOI (if available) is preferred, a non-DOI example is listed below.

3) If you collect or generate data for the same study areas, CREP requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the CREP Data Management Team of any errors and discrepancies that are discovered during the course of using these data. They are further urged to bring to the attention of the Team all problems and difficulties encountered in using these data. This information is necessary in order to improve the collections and to facilitate more efficient and economical data processing and retrieval. The users are asked to supply copies of any missing data that may be located, and to provide information as to significant subsets and special aggregations of data that are developed in using the material provided.

Example citation:

"This publication makes use of data products provided by the Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). The analysis and interpretations presented here are solely that of the current authors.”

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

None

Please cite PIFSC Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) when using the data.

Suggested citation:

Ecosystem Sciences Division; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2019). Baited Remote Underwater Video Station (BRUVS) Surveys of Fish in the Hawaiian Archipelago from 2012 to 2014. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/25248.

None

None

Video cameras: Sony handycams

Calibration: CAL software (www.seagis.com.au; Seager 2008)

Video concatenation and conversion: Xilisoft

Species annotation: EventMeasure-Stereo (Seager 2008)

Analysis: PRIMER Version 7.0.11 with PERMANOVA+ extensions or R-Studio

All reef fish identifications and annotated BRUV footage was QA/QC'd by a highly trained reef fish biologist. Where appropriate, deep-water scientists were also consulted in order to confirm identification of uncommon/rare species in mesophotic depths.

All BRUV MaxN datasets (.csv files) are compiled from individual site outputs generated during annotation through the EventMeasure application (individual .txt files).

Note: as of November 2017, the NWHI BRUVS data has only been annotated for roving predators (sharks/jacks/snapper), while MHI BRUVS targeted all fishes present.

All BRUVS data sets remain consistent with known, established protocols as described in literature.

All BRUV deployments, consisting of paired Sony handycams, are calibrated using CAL software (www.seagis.com.au; Seager 2008) according to well-published protocols (Harvey and Shortis 1998; Shortis and Harvey 1998) before and after each data collection effort.

Following completion of BRUVS deployments, all video footage is converted from MT2S to AVI format using the program Xilisoft, followed by the annotation of stereo-video imagery with EventMeasure videographic software (www.seagis.com.au) (Seager 2008). Species are identified to their lowest possible taxonomic level, with relative abundance recorded as MaxN measures. MaxN, defined as “the maximum number of fish belonging to each species present in the field of view of the cameras at one time” (Priede, Ragley et al. 1994; Willis and Babcock 2000a; Willis, Millar et al. 2000b; Cappo, Harvey et al. 2003; Cappo, Speare et al. 2004) is a conservative abundance measure that avoids repeated counts of the same targets.

All species annotations are completed by videographic analysts who have completed species ID tests with a minimum of 90% passing score. Following the completion of video archive processing, identifications are QA/QC'd by a second analyst in order to ensure identification accuracy.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

The count and size of reef fish observed on BRUVS surveys are manually logged by a video analyst.