Coral Reef Ecosystem and Larval Research Consisting Of Biologic Data from the Nancy Foster in Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico from April 11, 2015 to June 24, 2018 (NCEI Accession 0293057)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists from the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), working with scientists from the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) in St. Thomas conducted a multi-year interdisciplinary research project which was a continuation of the 2007-2011 project using the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster to conduct biological and physical oceanographic surveys of the Virgin Island's (VI) bank ecosystems and surrounding regional waters as well as areas around Jamaica, Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico. The long-term sustainability of fisheries in the VI and surrounding regions is dependent on a comprehensive understanding of regional spawning aggregations, larval transport, and overall larval recruitment in the study area.

This survey sampled water properties, currents, and dispersal and transport of settlement-stage larvae in the VI and neighboring regions. Data in this archival package includes: processed larval fish data collected from the various net tows (BONGO, MOCNESS, etc.) , processed data from all conductivity, temperature, depth (CTD) casts, processed data from all lowered acoustic Doppler profiler (LADCP) casts, processed hull-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (SADCP), processed sea surface, flow-through data collected with the ship's thermosalinograph (TSG) and fluorometer collected aboard NOAA Ship Nancy Foster during cruises NF-15-02, NF-15-03, NF-16-02, NF-16-03, NF-17-03 and NF-18-03 from 2015-04-11 to 2018-06-24.