Shellfish aquaculture farms as foraging habitat for nearshore fishes and crabs

This is the dataset used for the analysis in our paper. The file contains species counts and behavior classifications of nearshore fish and crabs taken from time-lapse underwater video. Also included are habitat transect data from each site. Presence/absence of zostera marina and zostera japonica eelgrass, algae, as well as eelgrass metrics were quantified in the transects.

The metadata spreadsheet contains descriptions of each column in the datasheet.

This data was collected at shellfish aquaculture farm sites across Puget Sound, Washington, USA in 2017, 2018, and 2019 using underwater timelapse video cameras and habitat transects.

Transects were done with 1/4 meter^2 quadrat divided into 25 10x10cm^2 squares, each quadrat was measured 5 times along a 30 meter line parallel to shore.

Video was recorded in 2 minute lengths every 10 minutes starting 1 hour before high tide, going to 1 hour after high tide, using cameras positioned approximately 18 inches off the substrate. PVC stakes were used to mark a 1 meter square of camera visibility and organisms observed within that 1 meter square were recorded. 

For more information, see my chapter 1 thesis.