Data underlying the publication: "Spatial dependency in abundance of Queen conch, Aliger gigas, in the Caribbean, indicates the importance of surveying deep-water distributions"

Evaluate how the spatial distribution of a heavily exploited marine gastropod (i.e., Queen conch) varies in response to a number of known biotic and abiotic variables within and between sites that vary in environmental conditions. A novel towed video system complemented belt transects to estimate adult queen conch densities throughout its depth range. Bayesian hierarchical spatial models (Integrated Nested Laplace approximations) modeled distribution patterns of adult conch and indicated that the general patchy distribution pattern and the lack of strong generic location over-crossing relationships between abiotic and biotic factors and adult conch abundance and distribution is likely to at least partly due to this spatial dependency and location-specific factors, that affect different parts of the conch life-history.