Rebreather Fish Surveys in the Main Hawaiian Islands from 2015-06-14 to 2015-08-13

Surveys were conducted in the course of a reef fish survey cruise conducted by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). These data come from surveys conducted using close-circuit rebreathers. The use of rebreathers is intended to provide data that can be compared against data gathered on open-circuit SCUBA, which is the breathing apparatus typically used by CREP.

The survey domain encompassed hard bottom habitats in the Main Hawaiian Islands and the stratification included island, reef zone, and depth. Sites were surveyed using the stationary point count (SPC) method to quantify reef fish assemblages. At each survey site, fish biologists entered the water and conducted paired fine-scale (~700 square meters) and high degree of taxonomic resolution Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) survey to assess species diversity, size distribution, and abundance of fishes at the site. At each site, one survey was conducted on open-circuit SCUBA and one on closed circuit rebreather. Only rebreather survey data is described here.

The goal of the project that these data were gathered for was to assess the effect of reducing the disturbance caused by divers on reef fish counts, at a range of locations varying from relatively heavily to relatively lightly fished areas. More specifically, it is understood that in locations with heavy fishing pressure, some fishes can associate the presence of divers with a risk of being targeted. There is therefore potential for diver presence to cause avoidance behavior which could lead to lowered fish counts and inaccurate estimates of differences between heavily-fished and lightly-fished locations.

One of the main sources of disturbance caused by most SCUBA divers comes from the bubbles released by open circuit SCUBA equipment when divers exhale. Those bubbles produce both a visual and audible disturbance. Closed circuit rebreathers do not release bubbles during normal operations, and therefore use of rebreathers has the potential to reduce disturbance and possibly therefore reduce avoidance behavior, leading to more accurate counts in some locations.

Because the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) of NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) uses fish surveys by divers on SCUBA to gather data that is used for a variety of management and research purposes---including the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP)---a series of studies were initiated to assess the importance of this issue - and these data are the rebreather component of those comparative surveys.

Raw survey data includes metadata for each survey (where, when, who, area); site characteristics (depth, reef type, habitat); individual reef fish observations identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible (usually species) including size, count, and observation type; and parameters needed to calculate biomass and density. Method is always for closed-circuit rebreather SPC surveys for these data.

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.

Islands of the main Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, Oahu, Molokai, Niihau, Lanai).

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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 Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP), 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.

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Please cite NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) when using the data.

Suggested citation:

Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2016). Rebreather Fish Surveys in the Main Hawaiian Islands. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/32874.

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PIFSC Oracle database view: V0_FISH_REA

Observations at each site were made by divers who have been trained, and met minimum standards in identifying species present at the survey locations and in estimating size of fishes in survey counts. However, all species identifications are made visually, sometimes in situations where a fish is only briefly seen.

Only shallow water (0 to 30 meter depth range) hard-bottom habitats are surveyed. The survey sites were randomly selected using a systematic process based on available habitat and bathymetric data. Although efforts are made to include broad spatial coverage of surveys at each island, weather conditions and other environmental constraints may have prevented the team from surveying exposed reef areas.

The same methods of data collection are used at each surveyed site, and periodic examination of the data is conducted throughout each mission to check for diver bias or other discrepancies.

Observations, including species identification and sizing, are periodically checked during expeditions for consistency between divers. Data entry is usually conducted on the same day as the surveys using a data entry interface with several data controls employed, and are quality controlled by the divers using a two-person system. Following a mission, the data is then run through rigorous quality control checks by the data management team before the data are migrated to the Oracle database. Given the size of the data set, there remains some possibility of typographical or other errors.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

Stationary Point Count survey of coral reef fish methodology, employed by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) since 2007.