The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. The reef fish survey of Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Lumps MPA is conducted primarily on the along topographic features (e.g. reefs, banks and ledges) of the MPA. A two-stage sampling design is used with the first stage or primary sampling units defined by geographic/geoform strata including ridges, pinnacles, rubble and sand flats and the second stage being randomly selected sites within the geoform strata. Sampling is conducted using a video camera array. No biological sampling is coupled with the survey because of the areas status as an MPA. The camera array consists of four housings positioned orthogonally and center mounted at a height of 51 cm above the bottom of the array. Each housing contains a pair of black-and-white Videre stereo cameras along with a color mpeg camera. Sampling of reef sites with video cameras occurs only during daylight hours, with the first gear deployment one hour after sunrise and the last gear retrieval one hour prior to sunset. Video arrays soak for 35 minutes. Habitat mapping was conducted using a multibeam echosounder by USGS. At each site hydrological data is collected using Conductivity Temperature Depth sensor (CTD).

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized reef fish video surveys in the Gulf of Mexico since 1992. The survey primarily occurs on the outer continental shelf along topographic features (e.g. reefs, banks and ledges) between Brownsville, TX to the Dry Tortugas, FL, and provides fisheries independent indices of reef fish abundance for use in stock assessments.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. A standardized reef fish survey is conducted in the U.S. Caribbean every 2nd or 3rd year with the objective of determining the relative abundance of reef fish on the shelf waters of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This survey uses video cameras, fish traps and vertical line gear, with approximately 200 video cameras, 200 vertical line and 100 traps conducted. The camera array consists of four housings positioned orthogonally and center mounted at a height of 51 cm above the bottom of the array. Each housing contains a pair of black-and-white Videre stereo cameras along with a color mpeg camera. Sampling of reef sites with video cameras occurs only during daylight hours, with the first gear deployment one hour after sunrise and the last gear retrieval one hour prior to sunset. Video arrays are soaked for 35 minutes. At sites selected for fish sampling, a chevron (or arrow) fish trap or vertical line is used to capture fish for biological samples. The chevron fish trap is constructed with 1.5-inch vinyl-clad mesh. In its greatest dimensions, the trap is 1.76 m in length, 1.52 m in width and 0.61 m in depth. A 0.4 m by 0.29 m blow out panel is placed on one side and kept closed using 7-day magnesium releases. The fish trap soaks for one hour and is baited with squid. The vertical line consists of a mainline with 10 gangions attached that is either deployed or attached to the vessel. One 8/0, 11/0 or 15/0 circle hook is attached to each gangion and baited with mackerel (Scomber scombrus). The mainline is soaked for five minutes. Most of the animals captured are measured, weighed, tagged and then released. Those individuals which are moribund or have expired are retained to collect biological data pertaining to the life history of these fishes. Habitat mapping is conducted using the SIMRAD ME70 multibeam echosounder. At each site hydrological data is collected using Conductivity Temperature Depth sensor (CTD).

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. A deepwater camera was tested at sites located on the Destin Dome in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The camera included artificial lights that were programmed to remain on (with or without a red filter) and turn on and off at intervals. A total of 17 deployments were conducted at depths ranging between 150 meters to 575 meters.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. The congressional supplemental sampling program (CSSP) was started in 2011 with the intent to provide additional information on key fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), create a truly synoptic survey, increase precision of relative abundance estimates, and to evaluate selectivity issues between gears and hook sizes. The survey was conducted on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico from Brownsville, Texas to the southwest coast of Florida from April 7 – October 25, 2011. Contract vessels provided captains and deck-crew, while the Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) provided scientific crew. Two longline and one vertical line vessel sampled east GOM sites while two longline and one vertical line vessel simultaneously sampled west GOM sites. Vessels were deployed as close in time as possible to ensure temporal overlap and to provide as synoptic a GOM-wide data set as possible. Randomly selected stations are restricted from being chosen within the boundaries of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (Stetson Bank, West Flower Garden Bank and East Flower Garden Bank), the Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Lumps marine protected areas, the Florida Middle Grounds, within 1 nautical mile (nm) of oil and gas platform structures, and within 1 nm of any other station in the stratum. All gear deployments were monitored using a shipboard SCS/FSCS computer system operated with weatherproof laptop computers with touch screen options. SCS/FSCS software will allow the acquisition of data to describe set and haul-back events (GMT time/date stamp, position and any other connected ship sensors). Environmental data was collected using a Seabird CTD profiler during fishing gear soaks to obtain temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen profiles. Set and catch data were ingested into an Oracle data set and stored as a relational data set.

This data set contains species, fish counts and freq of occurrence, station data, transect lengths and area, habitat type, and depth stratum for ROV video samples and for hook line and spear samples, species, lengths, whole weights, sex, station data, bottom temperature, and gear used.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center Mississippi Laboratories conducts standardized fisheries independent resource surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and U.S. Caribbean to provide abundance and distribution information to support regional and international stock assessments. Environmental profiles are acquired during all surveys and are averaged into one meter depth bins. The data are acquired with Sea-Bird SBE25 and SBE9 profilers equipped with water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, beam transmittance, and fluorescence sensors. These are raw data that are unprocessed.

The NOAA, Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Mississippi Laboratories, Harvesting Systems Unit conducts research to develop gear modifications to mitigate bycatch in fisheries. The video library contains underwater and surface video footage obtained during fisheries dependent and fisheries independent conservation engineering research conducted since 1986. The library includes footage of research conducted in commercial and recreational fisheries including: hook and line, longline, trawl, gill net, and pot fisheries. The footage is contained on VHS, DVD, Hi-8 and 8mm, digital videotapes, and mp4 video files. In addition, the library contains images obtained from DIDSON and ARIS sonars.

This data set is a Microsoft Access database containing detailed station data (station name number, date, location, depth, time, and bottom temperature) as well as species, fish counts and measurements, and habitat data derived from the raw video and still images and from chevron fish traps.

This data set contains ROV digital video data stored on DVDs and raw CTD data