Puerto Rico Long-Term Coral Reef Monitoring Program database compilation: substrate cover percent, octocoral colony counts, macro invertebrate densities, fish densities, and fish biomass from 1999 to 2020 (NCEI Accession 0204647)

From 2004-2013, a diver completed a Active Search Census (ASEC) survey for 30 minutes annotating sizes and abundances of fish and macro invertebrate’s species of interest. From 2015-2020, upon completion of the 10 meters belt-transect survey the diver swims along the same depth and physiographic reef zone for an extra 10 meters (20 x 3 meters band transect) in order to identify commercially and ecologically important fish and megabenthic invertebrates species (parrotfishes, doctorfishes, snappers, groupers, hogfishes, barracuda, mackerels, sharks, lobsters and queen conch).

For each fish individual within the 30-minute ASEC survey and 60m2 band transects, a visual total length (TL) estimate in centimeters is recorded. The cephalothorax length (measurement from the tip of the rostrum to end of the thorax), also known as carapace length (CL) in centimeters is used to report the size of lobsters (Panulirus spp., Scyllarides spp.) within belt-transects. Queen conch (Lobatus gigas) length is reported as the total (diagonal) shell length in centimeters.

With the length-weight relationship information available in FishBase.org, biomass estimates are calculated for commercially and ecologically important fish species. The PRCRMP data files also include a site classification spreadsheet with descriptors for each monitoring station, some of which can be used as spatial and temporal factors for statistical analyses. These descriptors include information about depth, habitat type, distance from shore, marine protected areas attributes, coordinates, and other metadata.