Models of density, presence, and height of deep-sea corals and sponges on the East Bering Sea (NCEI Accession 0296716)

Predictive models of density, presence, and individual height were generated from deep-sea coral and sponge specimen collected during bottom trawl surveys conducted along the East Bering Sea continental slope (<1200 m). The taxonomic resolution was left at coarse levels (corals, sea whips, and sponges) due to uncertainty in identification and the uncommon encounter rate of individuals caught in the trawls. Structure-forming corals were modeled as an individual group while sea whip and sea pens were modeled together collectively as a group called sea whips. All sponges were modeled as a singular group. Environmental layers employed in the modeling process are also available as part of this package except for the sediment parameters which have been previously archived (Smith and McConnaughey 1999). They include the parameters latitude, longitude, bathymetry, max bottom temperature for the region, current speed for the deepest depth bin at each sampling point, ocean color, and seafloor slope. For details on the measurement or computation of each environmental layer, see the journal article Sigler et al. (2015). All models and environmental layers are available as GeoTIFF rasters.