74320 ESD_larval_billfish_specimen_AllTows_env_DataDictionary_20250120 Entity Published / External 74319 Larval Billfish Data from Plankton Tows Conducted off the Kona Coast in West Hawai'i between 1997 and 2018 Data Set Completed 2025-02-21 2025-03-12 Data dictionary for meta-analysis Data Table Yes Meta-analysis data dictionary 1 specimen_identification Text No No Active Unique ID for an individual larva from a given site. 2 species Text No No Active Binomial species identity obtained either from morphology, singleplex PCR assay or COI barcoding and subsequent Sanger sequencing. Those without a confirmed ID are labelled "Unk.Istiophoridae" 3 standard_length_mm Number No No Active Length from the tip of the nose to the start of the caudal fin (includes the caudal peduncle), measured in millimeters to the nearest 0.5mm under a light microscope (for specimens 7mm in length or shorter). Specimens longer than 7mm were measured to the nearest 1mm. Many of these larger larvae were curled up or were otherwise slightly warped by their preservation in ethanol -- this was the most accurate measurement for the larger sizes without further damaging those specimens". mm 4 stage Text No No Active growth stage as determined by observer based on body/tail flexion, options are "preflexion", "flexion" and "post flexion". Assignments were guided by istiophorid illustrations in The Moster Book of Little Monsters. Dried/damaged specimens were not assigned a life stage. 5 Transect Text No No Active Unique transect identifier 6 Station Text No No Active unique numbers to identify where a plankton tow was collected during research cruises before 2016. There was not an equivalent "station" value for tows conducted after 2016 and as thus were converted from "Sample" 7 Site Text No No Active unique sample identifier 8 Sample Number No No Active Sample number 9 Cruise Text No No Active PIFSC research cruise identifier 10 Year Year No No Active Year that research cruise and related plankton tows were conducted 11 Date Date No No Active Date of tow. Format: MM/DD/YYYY 12 Time.start Time No No Active time that the plankton tow started; HH:MM:SS format 13 Time.end Time No No Active time that the plankton tow ended; HH:MM:SS format 14 LAT_DD_start Number No No Active latitude at which plankton tow started, listed in decimal degrees 15 LONG_DD_start Number No No Active longitude at which plankton tow started, listed in decimal degrees 16 Habitat Text No No Active The sampling site description, whether a tow was conducted in a surface slick or in ambient water conditions. 17 Platform Text No No Active the name of the research vessel from which trawls were conducted (Sette = RV Oscar Elton Sette; Cromwell = Townsend Cromwell). If trawls were not conducted off a research vessel the cell will simply read "small boat", typically 19' SAFE Boats or inflatables. 18 Gear Text No No Active Type of gear used during tow: (most often) 1m ring-net or 6 ft. IK Trawl 19 mesh Text No No Active mesh size of plankton net (microns) used during tow 20 vol.m3 Number No No Active volume of water that net was towed through in units of cubic meters 21 tow.length Number No No Active tow length (m); distance between start and stop coordinates. For 2016-2018, this is exact. For 1997-2011 this is the distance between start/end lat long and may underestimate length if ship deviated from a straight course. m 22 dist.shore Number No No Active distance to shore (meters) as calculated from tow start coordinates. 23 tow.duration Number No No Active tow duration (mins) minutes 24 tow.depth.category Text No No Active type of plankton tow: surface (neuston), sub-surface targeted the top 20m or so (but exact depths were not recorded) 25 day.night Text No No Active time of 24 hour cycle in which tows were conducted as defined by the position of the sun 26 tow.speed.kts Number No No Active ship or small boat speed while the net was being towed, listed in knots (if not originally listed in knots the units were converted to knots) knots 27 LAT_DD_end Number No No Active latitude at which plankton tow ended, listed in decimal degrees 28 LONG_DD_end Number No No Active longitude at which plankton tow ended, listed in decimal degrees 29 temp_is Number No No Active temperature in the top 1 meter of the water column (degrees celcuius), measured from in-situ CTD (small boat), Thermosalinograph (ship), or remote sensing (satellite) degrees Celsius 30 sal_is Number No No Active salinity in the top 1 meter of the water column (PSU), measured from in-situ CTD (small boat) or Thermosalinograph (ship), or remote sensing (satellite) 31 fluo.1m Number No No Active fluorescence values in the top 1 meter of the water column (µg/L) measured from in-situ CTD (small boat) or Thermosalinograph (ship) microgram per Litre 32 chla_is Number No No Active chlorophyll a concentration in the top1m of the water column (µg/L), measured from in-situ water bottle collections (measured by Turner A10) or remote sensing (satellite) 33 chltot Number No No Active total chlorophyll concentration in the top 1m of the water column, as calculated from chla values, measured from in-situ water bottle collections (measured by Turner A10) 34 TempC_data_source Text No No Active To be paired with "temp.1m" column. Since column consists of combined in situ and remotely sensed data, each data point's source is labelled here such that users can filter to only one data source if so desired. Please note that columns of in situ only (temp_is) and remote sensing only (sst_rs) also exist 35 Salinity_data_source Text No No Active To be paired with "sal.1m" column. Since column consists of combined in situ and remotely sensed data, each data point's source is labelled here such that users can filter to only one data source if so desired. Please note that columns of in situ only (sal_is) and remote sensing only (sss_rs) also exist 36 chla_data_source Text No No Active To be paired with "chla" column. Since column consists of combined in situ and remotely sensed data, each data point's source is labelled here such that users can filter to only one data source if so desired. Please note that columns of in situ only (chla_is) and remote sensing only (chla_rs) also exist 37 CRW_SST Number No No Active sea surface temperature (degrees Celsius) obtained from remote sensing. Source was NOAA's Coral Reef watch. Link to ERDAPP page at time of publication is: 38 GLORYS_sal Number No No Active "salinity obtained from remote sensing. Source was E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Informationhttps://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00021 GLORYS12V1 product is the CMEMS global ocean eddy-resolving (1/12 degree horizontal resolution, 50 vertical levels) reanalysis" 39 chlor_8day Number No No Active Chlorophyll a concentrations obtained from remote sensing. Chla values were derived from ocean color data. Source: ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative Copernicus 8 day amalgamation-(Sathyendranath et al. 2021). A buffer around 30m depth contour equal to 1/2 diagonal pixel distance of 500m GOCI data was added as a mask to these data. Code written by J. Perelman. 40 temp.1m Number No No Active Temperature in the top 1 meter of the water column (degrees celcuius), measured Thermosalinograph/TSG (ship) only. Temperature is an average taken of all values collected by the TSG between the record start and end times of a plankton tow on a given date. 41 sal.1m Number No No Active Salinity in the top 1 meter of the water column (PSU), measured from in-situ CTD (small boat) or Thermosalinograph (ship), only. Salinity is an average taken of all values collected by the TSG between the record start and end times of a plankton tow on a given date. 42 chla Number No No Active Chlorophyll a concentration in the top1m of the water column (µg/L), measured from in-situ water bottle collections (measured by Turner A10) only. 43 cat_moon Text No No Active a qualitative description of lunar illumination on the night closest to when a tow occured. The lunar.phase() function in the the lunar package in R Studio was used on the StartDate of a given tow to obtain this data. We found this particularly useful as it specifies whether the moon was waxing or waning, which is information lost when using lunar illumunation alone. 44 consistent_with_product_1 Text No No Active Product 1, developed earlier in this effort, is a curated metadataset of all neuston tows over the 20 year dataset. The most conservative, statistically sound, and most comparable way to analyze the densities of larvae in this dataset would be to only use rows where the value in this column is "TRUE". We provide collection dates and start coordinates for all trawls across the dataset in case workers would like to pursue a simple presence/absence analysis. TRUE/ FALSE gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:74320 Lori Luers 2025-01-10T21:33:46 Lori Luers 2025-07-14T22:09:34 2025-07-14 Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center PIFSC 1845 Wasp Blvd. Honolulu HI 96818 USA 808-725-5300 https://www.pifsc.noaa.gov 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. 1001 Public No 2025-07-11 1 Year 2026-07-11