Santa Barbara Channel Marine BON: Integrated fish

The Santa Barbara Channel MBON tracks long-term patterns in species abundance and
diversity. This dataset contains counts of fish (including cryptic fish, which are
deliberately sought out) produced by integrating data from four contributing projects
working in the kelp forests of the Santa Barbara Channel, USA.
This dataset includes three entities, two data tables and R code. The main data table
contains counts of organisms, the area over which that number was counted and the height
above the bottom. Data were collected by human observation (divers using SCUBA) during
regular surveys. The column labeled “count” records the number of organisms found in each
plot/transect at a given timestamp.. A second data table contains place names and
geolocation for sampling sites. Information is sufficient for the calculation of fish
density, which is left to the user. Sample R-code is included (third entity) to illustrate
generation of a basic table of areal density by taxa and sampling site. See Methods for
information on integration and data processing
The four contributing projects are two research projects: the Santa Barbara Coastal
LTER (SBC LTER) and the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO),
and the kelp forest monitoring program of the Santa Barbara Channel National Park, and the
San Nicolas Island monitoring program supported by USGS. Together, these projects have
recorded data for more than 200 species at approximately 100 sites on both the mainland
coast and on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Sampling began in 1982 and is ongoing.