Images from Meso- and Bathypelagic Surveys in the Gully Marine Protected Area: III: Fish of the 2009 Survey

During 2007–10, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans conducted four midwater-trawl surveys, at meso- and bathypelagic depths, in The Gully – a large submarine canyon incised into the Scotian Shelf, east of Sable Island, the core of which has been within a Marine Protected Area since 2004. The surveys followed a fixed-station, depth-stratified design, with replicate sets both in daylight and at night. Most sampling used International Young Gadoid Pelagic Trawls (IYGPTs) –open nets with 60 m² mouth area– worked on double-oblique profiles. From the 2008 survey, the trawls were fitted with rigid (“aquarium”) codends and successfully took a number of delicate specimens in exceptional condition. Full details of the field methodologies have been presented by Kenchington et al. (2009, 2014). Catches of the abundance- or biomass-dominant fish species have been published by Thompson and Kenchington (2016) and Kenchington et al. (2018, 2020a). The ceratioid anglerfishes have been published by Kenchington et al. (2020b) and DNA barcodes derived from selected specimens by Kenchington et al. (2017). Identification of fish specimens is ongoing (in 2022), while damage in the nets means that not all can be identified to species. It is, nevertheless, sure that specimens from in excess of 240 fish species were captured. Many of those have rarely been seen and most had never been photographed in fresh condition. Thus, a variety of camera systems were taken to sea on the surveys and an attempt made to create images of every species captured. The resulting collection has been catalogued and lightly edited, while erring on the side of retaining any image that might prove useful in the future. Almost all of those retained are in their original formats and resolutions, though some copies subsequently edited for publication have been added. Because of file-size limits, the present collection includes only the 498 catalogued images of fish specimens from the 2009 survey, together with a copy of the entire catalogue of fish images. Individual files are uniquely numbered (from F09001 to F09498), with corresponding entries in the catalogue. The latter presents the contents of each image (typically only a species name, though some entries have more details) and such other image-specific details as are available. Not all images can be linked to particular specimens but, for those which can be, catalogue entries include cross-references to the survey-program’s catch database, which provides further details on the specimens concerned. All images © His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, 2022. Amongst the named authors, the surveys were led by Trevor Kenchington, who also catalogued the images and, working with Cam Lirette, presented them here. Specimen identifications at sea and most of those ashore were by Daphne Themelis, while Merlin Best and Andrew Cogswell captured the images at sea.

2007—2010年，加拿大渔业与海洋部（Department of Fisheries and Oceans）在峡谷湾（The Gully）开展了4次中层拖网调查，该区域为萨布尔岛（Sable Island）东侧、斯科舍陆架（Scotian Shelf）上发育的大型海底峡谷，其核心区域自2004年起已纳入海洋保护区（Marine Protected Area）。调查采用固定站位、深度分层的采样设计，日间与夜间均设置重复采样组。多数采样使用国际稚鳕中层拖网（International Young Gadoid Pelagic Trawls, IYGPTs）——该网具口门面积达60平方米，采用双斜向剖面作业方式。自2008年起，拖网加装了硬质“水族箱”式囊网，成功采集到大量状态极佳的脆弱标本。野外采样方法的完整细节已由Kenchington等（2009、2014）发表。丰度或生物量占优势的鱼类物种的渔获数据已由Thompson与Kenchington（2016）以及Kenchington等（2018、2020a）公开。角鮟鱇科鱼类（ceratioid anglerfishes）相关研究由Kenchington等（2020b）发表，而取自选定标本的DNA条形码数据则由Kenchington等（2017）发布。鱼类标本的鉴定工作仍在进行中（截至2022年），且由于网具造成的标本损伤，并非所有标本都能鉴定至物种水平。不过可以确定的是，本次调查共捕获超过240种鱼类标本，其中多数物种极为罕见，且绝大多数从未有过鲜活状态下的影像记录。为此，调查团队携带了多套摄影系统随船作业，尝试为每一种捕获的鱼类拍摄影像。最终得到的影像集已完成编目与轻度编辑，秉持宁留勿弃的原则保留所有未来可能具备科研价值的影像。绝大多数留存影像均保留了原始格式与分辨率，同时补充了部分后续用于正式出版的编辑版本。受限于文件大小限制，本次公开的数据集仅包含2009年调查中498条已编目的鱼类标本影像，以及完整的鱼类影像编目副本。每条影像文件均配有唯一编号（编号范围为F09001至F09498），编目中也包含对应的条目。编目内容包含每张影像的基本信息（通常仅为物种名称，部分条目包含更多细节）及其他可获取的影像专属信息。并非所有影像都能关联到具体标本，但对于可关联的标本，编目条目会交叉引用调查项目的渔获数据库，该数据库可提供相关标本的更多细节。所有影像版权归加拿大国王陛下所有（2022年）。本次调查由Trevor Kenchington牵头，他同时负责影像编目工作，并与Cam Lirette合作完成了本次数据集的发布。海上及岸上的绝大多数标本鉴定工作由Daphne Themelis完成，而海上摄影工作则由Merlin Best与Andrew Cogswell负责。