Taxa occurrences from benthic near-shore surveys in Southwest New Brunswick, Bay of Fundy, Canada in July and August 2007
Description
This dataset comprises part of the comprehensive remote video surveys conducted by the Underwater Reconnaissance and Coastal Habitat Inventory (URCHIN) remote camera system (first iteration detailed in Strong and Lawton 2004). This dataset includes qualitative descriptions of video transects conducted across the seafloor in the Quoddy Region, Bay of Fundy, Canada, along with quantitative occurrence and abundance of 29 taxa (using a modified SACFOR scale: Abundant, Common, and Occasional to Rare), including the biogenic habitat-forming horse mussels, Modiolus modiolus and stalked tunicate species, Boltenia ovifera. Seafloor substrates are qualitatively described, and sample clips (six seconds long, equating to 50-200 cm linear distances) were taken at 1-min intervals from each of the 36 transects (recorded across 14 cassette tapes). Full methodology and descriptive results are documented in the attached report (Owen et al. 2026). References: Owen, M., Strong, M., Lawton, P. and Teed, L.L. 2026. Development of a protocol for, and analysis of, data from benthic near-shore surveys of Southwest New Brunswick. Unpublished report. Fisheries and Oceans Canada contract F52990-070128. Strong, M.B. and Lawton, P. 2004. URCHIN – Manually-deployed geo-referenced video system for Underwater Reconnaissance and Coastal Habitat Inventory. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2553: iv + 28 p.
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Steps to reproduce
Detailed methodology for the near-seafloor imagery survey is presented in the attached report (Owen et al. 2026). In brief, video collected with the URCHIN II remote camera system (Strong and Lawton 2004) during the summer of 2007, was recorded on Mini-DV tape. Copies of tapes numbered 64 to 77, containing sets identified as #141 to 178 were played from a Sony editing deck (Model 900), connected by an S-video cable to a monitor with the data on the soundtrack directed through a Geostamp Audio modem to a serial-USB converter (StarTek) to the USB input of a MacPro. ClassEvent (Version 2), running in Windows Vista, was used to record the visual appearance of the material of the seabed, at two-second intervals, using the categories (a modified Wentworth scale) as the Class input (including: no bottom, fine, fine + gravel shell or cobble, sand, gravel, cobble, boulder, rock, rock/boulder + fine, biota covered, unable to tell). After some testing the sampling protocol that was developed was based on isolating a 6-second subclip of video (within Final Cut Express) starting at the beginning of each minute shown on the onscreen clock of the video. Faunal abundance in each subclip was assessed on the scale described in the next section. This protocol was modified in a small number of sets, where the seabed did not change significantly along the transect, when sample subclips were taken every 3-minutes. While the full video files are too large to provide here, they will be made available on the associated Canada's Open Data Portal link with the same title. Abundance of an animal group/taxa, in each sample clip, was estimated on a scale following that of Noble et al. (1976), derived from the SACFOR abundance scale (S - superabundant, A - abundant, C - common, F - frequent, O - occasional, R - rare). Namely, the number 1-3 were used to indicate 3 - Abundant, 2 - Common, 1 - Occasional to Rare. Only 29 select taxa were analyzed for, namely macrofauna easily distinguishable in the video (see Table 1 in attached report). While originally analyzed in 2007, video data was reassessed in 2026 to update species/taxa names to follow current nomenclature and data formatting.
Institutions
- Fisheries and Oceans CanadaOntario, Ottawa