This is the original (1991) Southeast regional component of NOAA's Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 40 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 20 estuaries in coastal North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida. Species were selected according to a set of criteria, which consider their commercial, recreational, and ecological value. For each species, five life stages are considered - adults, juveniles, larvae, spawning, and eggs - with some exceptions based on individual species life history. Each estuary is subdivided into one to three salinity zones (Tidal Fresh, Mixing, and Seawater). Relative abundance was ranked on a five-tier scale by month for each life stage of each species, in each salinity zone of each estuary. Details of the methods for the original Southeast ELMR component can be found in Nelson et al. (1991) and Nelson and Monaco (2000).

This is the West Coast regional component of NOAA’s Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 47 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 32 estuaries in coastal California, Oregon, and Washington State. Species were selected according to a set of criteria, which consider their commercial, recreational, and ecological value, as well as their utility as an indicator of environmental stress. For each species, five life stages are considered - adults, juveniles, larvae, spawning, and eggs - with some exceptions based on individual species life history. Each estuary is subdivided into one to three salinity zones (Tidal Fresh, Mixing, and Seawater). Relative abundance was ranked on a five-tier scale by month for each life stage of each species, in each salinity zone of each estuary. Details of the methods and resulting life history summaries for the West Coast ELMR component can be found in Monaco et al. (1990) and Emmett et al. (1991).

This is the original (1992) Gulf of Mexico regional component of NOAA's Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 44 species of fishes and invertebrates, in 31 estuaries in coastal Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Species were selected according to a set of criteria, which consider their commercial, recreational, and ecological value. For each species, five life stages are considered - adults, juveniles, larvae, spawning, and eggs - with some exceptions based on individual species life history. Each estuary is subdivided into one to three salinity zones (Tidal Fresh, Mixing, and Seawater). Relative abundance was ranked on a five-tier scale by month for each life stage of each species, in each salinity zone of each estuary. Details of the methods for the original Gulf of Mexico ELMR component can be found in Nelson et al. (1992) and Nelson and Monaco (2000).

This dataset provides seasonal spatial rasters of median predicted long-term (1978-2016) relative density of 47 marine bird species throughout the US Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and adjacent waters at a 2-km spatial resolution. Three indications of the uncertainty associated with the model predictions are also provided: 1) seasonal spatial layers indicating areas with no survey effort, 2) seasonal spatial rasters of the precision of predicted relative density of each species characterized as its coefficient of variation (CV), and 3) seasonal spatial rasters of the precision of predicted relative density of each species characterized as its 90% confidence interval. Predicted relative density should always be considered in conjunction with these three indications of uncertainty. Suggested symbology class breaks and labels for mapping predicted relative density and its CV are also included. Finally, this dataset also includes spatial rasters of environmental predictor variables that were used in the predictive modeling.