USGS South Florida Fish and Invertebrate Assessment Network Braun Blanquet

The South Florida Fish and Invertebrate Assessment Network (FIAN) is a monitoring project within the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). It is an element of the Southern Estuaries module of the Monitoring and Assessment Plan (MAP). The FIAN is designed to support the four broad objectives of MAP: (1) to establish a pre-CERP reference state, including variability, for each of the performance measures; (2) to determine the status and trends in the performance measures; (3) to detect unexpected responses of the ecosystem to changes in stressors resulting from CERP activities; and (4) to support scientific investigations designed to increase ecosystem understanding, cause-and-effect, and interpretation of unanticipated results. FIAN is a regional scale monitoring program of seagrass-associated fish and invertebrate (penaeid and caridean shrimp and crabs) communities present in shallow waters of South Florida; the pink shrimp, Farfantepenaeus duorarum, as a restoration indicator, is a species of special interest. FIAN provides input to the pink shrimp performance measure. The pink shrimp emerged as an ecosystem attribute to be monitored from the Florida and Biscayne Bay conceptual ecological models. A 1-m2 throw-trap is the basic gear used to sample fauna in FIAN. Associated with each throw-trap animal sample are measurements of seagrass/algae habitat, water depth, sediment depth and surface temperature, salinity and turbidity. Twice annually, a randomly located throw-trap sample is collected in each cell of a 30-cell grid at each of the 19 monitoring locations at the end of the dry season (April/May) and the wet season (September/October). This dataset describes the quantification of the bethtic vegetation using a modified Braun Blanquet cover-abundance method.南佛罗里达鱼类与无脊椎动物评估网络（South Florida Fish and Invertebrate Assessment Network，缩写FIAN）是大沼泽地综合恢复计划（Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan，缩写CERP）下属的监测项目，同时也是监测与评估计划（Monitoring and Assessment Plan，缩写MAP）南部河口模块的组成部分。 FIAN的设计旨在支撑MAP的四大总体目标：（1）为每项绩效指标建立CERP实施前的参考状态（包含其变异性）；（2）确定绩效指标的现状与变化趋势；（3）监测生态系统对CERP活动引发的胁迫因子变化所产生的非预期响应；（4）支撑旨在加深生态系统认知、厘清因果关系以及解读非预期结果的科学研究。 FIAN是一项针对南佛罗里达浅海水域内与海草共生的鱼类和无脊椎动物（对虾科、长臂虾类虾类及蟹类）群落的区域性监测项目；其中作为恢复指示物种的粉红虾（Farfantepenaeus duorarum）为重点关注物种。FIAN为粉红虾绩效指标提供数据输入。粉红虾作为生态系统监测属性被纳入监测体系，源自佛罗里达与比斯坎湾的概念生态模型。 FIAN采用1平方米抛掷式采样网作为采集动物群落的基本装备。每一份抛掷式采样网获取的动物样本，均配套记录海草/藻类生境、水深、沉积物厚度以及表层水温、盐度与浊度等环境参数。每年于旱季末期（4月/5月）和雨季末期（9月/10月），分别在19个监测点位的30单元格网格的每个单元格内，随机采集一份抛掷式采样网样本。 本数据集描述了采用改良布朗-布朗凯（Braun Blanquet）盖度-多度法对底栖植被进行定量分析的方法。