163 Great Barrier Reef reefs were surveyed for octocoral communities across up to five depth zones. Visual estimates of benthic cover and physical environmental conditions were collected by one experienced observer during swim surveys. The data were spatially interpolated over the entire GBR using Generalized Additive Models, producing gridded layers.
Use Cases
- Modeling octocoral biodiversity patterns based on environmental drivers like slope angle and sedimentation.
- Analyzing the distribution contrast between octocoral taxa with and without zooxanthellae.
- Mapping interpolated percent cover of benthic groups such as hard corals and macroalgae across the Great Barrier Reef.
- Studying the relationship between physical site conditions and soft coral community composition.
Strengths
- Data is based on visual surveys from 163 individual reefs, providing a broad spatial sample.
- Includes estimates for multiple benthic groups and physical environmental conditions at each site.
- Spatial interpolation provides continuous, gridded coverage of the Great Barrier Reef for analysis.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Data collection relied on a single observer, which may introduce observer bias.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Collection Method
- Visual swim surveys by one observer along ~200 m transects at up to 5 depth zones per reef site.
- Time Range
- 1997 - 2008
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-07-13 18:50:02.604172; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Great Barrier Reef, Australia