30 vertical relief measurements per 15-meter transect were collected by SCUBA divers at climate stations in American Samoa. Benthic complexity was tallied into five substrate height bins, and urchin abundance was recorded using a visual estimation code. These data were gathered by NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center from 2015 to 2018 as part of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program.
Use Cases
- Modeling coral reef resilience based on benthic complexity measurements.
- Analyzing urchin population dynamics based on abundance codes (DACOR).
- Monitoring changes in substrate height distribution over time.
- Assessing habitat structure at 15-meter depths in hard-bottom environments.
Strengths
- Data collection follows a standardized protocol with 30 measurements per transect.
- Surveys were conducted at specific 15-meter depths using a stratified random site selection.
- Data spans a multi-year period from 2015 to 2018.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the American Samoa sampling area.
Provenance
- Source
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce
- Collection Method
- SCUBA diver visual surveys at NCRMP climate stations.
- Time Range
- 2015 to 2018
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-03-14 23:03:53.175087; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- American Samoa