North Central Coast: ROV surveys of soft and rocky deep-water ecosystems

This package includes data collected during ROV transects conducted within and adjacent to California's North Central Coast MPAs which were designated in accordance with the Marine Life Protection Act. The transects were conducted by the Institute of Applied Marine Ecology (IfAME) and Marine Applied Research and Exploration (MARE) aboard F/V Donna Kathleen during the summers of 2010 and 2011. These surveys were designed to collect baseline data, capturing the state of the NCC MPAs at the time of designation, to be used as a basis for future comparisons. The areas surveyed comprise deep benthic soft-bottom and rocky-reef ecosystems within a depth range of 20 m to 116 m. The ROV, Beagle, was equipped with forward and down facing video cameras as well as a downward facing still camera. Video and still imagery were collected for post-processing which included the extraction of ecological data including the number and size of fish and invert species along with habitat classification. This dataset was originally uploaded to Oceanspaces (http://oceanspaces.org/) in 2013 as part of the North Central Coast baseline monitoring program. In 2020 the baseline data and reports were uploaded to the California Ocean Protection Council Data Repository by Mike Esgro ([e-mail]) and Rani Gaddam ([e-mail]). Every attempt has been made to include all of the original data, metadata, and reports submitted in 2013, but please contact the Data Set Contacts with any questions. The long-term California MPA boundary and project info tables referenced in this dataset can be found as a separate dataset here: https://opc.dataone.org/view/doi:10.25494/P64S3W