Sea Around Us Project - Relative demersal fish abundance inferred from commercial catch da

Northwestern Australia's relative abundance of commercially exploited demersal fishes is mapped over a 30 arc-minute spatial grid. The data cover the period 1997-2006 and are derived from an analysis of commercial landings available through the Sea Around Us Project. The dataset lists the percentage contributions of 25 species, genera, and families to the total catch.

Use Cases

• Modeling spatial hotspots of fish abundance based on the 0.5-degree grid mapping.
• Analyzing temporal trends in relative abundance for specific taxa like Mustelus or Platycephalidae over the 1997-2006 period.
• Assessing the proportional contribution of different fish families to commercial catches in the region.
• Comparing demersal fish assemblage data with environmental or other biological datasets for the same spatial grid.

Strengths

• Data covers a 10-year period from 1997 to 2006.
• Includes percentage contributions for 25 distinct taxonomic groups, with Mustelus contributing 26.19% and Platycephalidae 23.32%.
• Spatial mapping is provided at a 30 arc-minute (0.5-degree) resolution.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Sea Around Us Project, via the Australian Ocean Data Network (data_gov_au).

Collection Method

Derived from an analysis of commercial landings data.

Time Range

1997-2006

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 18:01:14.386959; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northwestern Australia