Database of Grazing Metrics for Herbivorous Fishes of the Indo-Pacific

The database described here consists of foraging metrics of herbivorous fishes (bite rate, bite area, bite volume, proportion of bites that leave grazing scars) extracted from relevant publications. All data were already publicly available either in the form of information reported in a publication or data were shared publicly via data repositories. Observations included in the database took place in tropical waters excluding locations in the Atlantic Ocean. Focal fish species were herbivores that are found in the nearshore waters of the United States Pacific Islands. The database also includes the body length of every fish, and information about sea surface temperate, time of day, and depth as available per measured bite rate.

This referential tool compiles and standardizes grazing metrics across various studies of herbivorous fishes, as well as integrates sea surface temperature from satellite data for each study. The publication associated with this dataset can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4791

Global synthesis of information currently available about fish foraging metrics of Pacific species that inform herbivory and bioerosion on nearshore shallow reefs.

Kindinger, Tye L., Thomas C. Adam, Julia K. Baum, Sean A. Dimoff, Andrew S. Hoey, and Ivor D. Williams. 2024. “ Herbivory through the Lens of Ecological Processes across Pacific Coral Reefs.” Ecosphere 15(2): e4791. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4791

Additional data used in the synthesis that were provided by owners that are not included in this database was due to not having direct ownership of those data nor permission from the owners to share those data.

The observation data (.csv) includes metadata about the data source and location of collection. Observations of bite rates also include corresponding sea surface temperature (from satellite data), depth, and time of day when such information was provided by a data source.

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.

Extent of datasets compiled in the database.

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NOAA Ecosystem Science Division (ESD) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

ESD welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. ESD 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 ESD principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by ESD, proper acknowledgement of both ESD 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, ESD requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the ESD 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 Science 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). 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 Fisheries, Ecosystem Science Division (ESD) when using the data.

Example:

Ecosystem Science Division; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, 2022: Database of Grazing Metrics of Herbivorous Fishes, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/65072.

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Observations are available in a csv file, and were collected from publicly available data online or through data repositories. DataThief III Software was used to extract values as needed from figures in publications.

Accuracy of individual sources of observations may be traced back to the original publications and authors.

See Kindinger et al. XXXX

See Kindinger et al. XXXX

See Kindinger et al. XXXX.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

Compilation of measures of bite rate, bite size, and proportion of bites that leave scars of herbivorous fishes with corresponding information about fish body length and various covariates from data sourced from scientific publications and technical reports, public fish database, and satellite data.