Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities: Annotations and images of corals, sponges, and fish from the northern Gulf of America from 2017-07-20 to 2021-08-15 (NCEI Accession 0299813)

This dataset provides geo-referenced observations on the occurrence of corals, sponges, fishes, and invertebrates in the deep waters of the northern Gulf of America. This dataset comprises video annotations on the diversity and abundance of organisms observed in 69 remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives conducted over a five-year period from 2017-2021. Dives took place across the continental shelf and slope offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida at depths ranging from 55 to 2,200 meters below sea level. Data is formatted in an Excel workbook. This data package includes images taken from the ROV video, along with summary reports. ROV Video are publicly available via the link in the Documentation section.

This dataset provides annotations for data originally collected through two projects - the NOAA RESTORE Science Program “Population Connectivity of Deepwater Corals in the Northern Gulf of Mexico” (NA17NOS4510096) and NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Competitive Research Program “Connectivity of Coral Ecosystems (CYCLE) in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico” project (NA17NOS4510096).

本数据集收录了美国北部墨西哥湾深水海域中珊瑚、海绵、鱼类及无脊椎动物的地理参考观测数据。数据集包含2017至2021年五年间开展的69次遥控水下机器人（Remotely Operated Vehicle，ROV）下潜作业中所观测到的生物多样性与丰度的视频标注数据。此次下潜作业覆盖德克萨斯州、路易斯安那州、密西西比州、阿拉巴马州及佛罗里达州近海的大陆架与陆坡区域，作业水深介于55米至2200米之间。数据以Excel工作簿格式存储，本数据包包含从遥控水下机器人视频中提取的图像及汇总报告。遥控水下机器人视频可通过文档部分提供的链接公开获取。

本数据集的标注数据源自两项原有研究项目：一是美国国家海洋和大气管理局（National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration，NOAA）RESTORE科学计划"墨西哥湾北部深水珊瑚种群连通性"（项目编号：NA17NOS4510096）；二是美国国家海洋和大气管理局海岸海洋科学国家中心竞争性研究计划"墨西哥湾西北部珊瑚生态系统（CYCLE）连通性"项目（项目编号：NA17NOS4510096）。