Benthic cover from automated annotation of benthic images collected at coral reef sites in the Pacific Remote Island Areas and American Samoa from 2018-06-08 to 2018-08-11 (NCEI Accession 0204646)

The coral reef benthic community data described here result from the automated annotation (classification) of benthic images collected during photoquadrat surveys conducted by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD, formerly the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division) as part of NOAA's ongoing National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). SCUBA divers conducted benthic photoquadrat surveys in coral reef habitats according to protocols established by ESD and NCRMP during the ESD-led NCRMP mission to the islands and atolls of the Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIA) and American Samoa from June 8 to August 11, 2018. Still photographs were collected with a high-resolution digital camera mounted on a pole to document the benthic community composition at predetermined points along transects at stratified random sites surveyed only once as part of Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys for corals and fish (Ayotte et al. 2015; Swanson et al. 2018) and permanent sites established by ESD and resurveyed every ~3 years for climate change monitoring. Overall, 30 photoquadrat images were collected at each survey site.

The benthic habitat images were quantitatively analyzed using the web-based, machine-learning, image annotation tool, CoralNet (https://coralnet.ucsd.edu; Beijbom et al. 2015; Williams et al. 2019). Ten points were randomly overlaid on each image and the machine-learning algorithm "robot" identified the organism or type of substrate beneath, with 300 annotations (points) generated per site. Benthic elements falling under each point were identified to functional group (Tier 1: hard coral, soft coral, sessile invertebrate, macroalgae, crustose coralline algae, and turf algae) for coral, algae, invertebrates, and other taxa following Lozada-Misa et al. (2017). These benthic data can ultimately be used to produce estimates of community composition, relative abundance (percentage of benthic cover), and frequency of occurrence.

Tags: algae, algal cover, american samoa, american samoa (14s170w0000), aquatic habitat, automated annotation, baker island, baker island (00n176w0001), benthic, benthic biology, benthic habitat, benthos analysis, biosphere, blue-green algae, central pacific ocean, coastal processes, coral, coral communities, coral cover, coral reef ecology, coral reef ecosystem division, coral reef ecosystem program, coral reefs, corals, country/territory, cred, crep, crustose coralline algae, earth science, ecosystem sciences division, encrusting macroalgae, esd, gdg2xl, howland island, howland island (00s176w0001), image analysis, jarvis island (00s160w0001), kingman reef (06n162w0001), line islands, manu'a group, marine biology, marine invertebrates, microbiota, numeric data sets, ocean basin, oceanography, oceans, ofu island (14s169w0013), olosega island (14s169w0014), pacific islands fisheries science center, pacific ocean, palmyra atoll (05n162w0001), photograph analysis, photographic analysis, pifsc, quadrat monitoring, rapid assessment studies, reef habitat, reef monitoring and assessment, stratified random, strs, swains atoll (11s171w0001), ta'u island (14s169w0012), turf algae, tutuila island (14s170w0016), united states of america, usa minor outlying islands, vegetation, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce