These water quality data are one of many studies being done to assess and monitor coral reef ecosystems.The intent of this work is three fold: (1) to spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance, and size of both reef fishes and macro-invertebrates (conch, lobster, Diadema); (2) to relate this information to in-situ data collected on water quality and associated habitat parameters; (3) to use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting and to establish the efficacy of those management decisions. Toward this end, the Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment's Biogeography Branch (BB) has completed its fourth year and is beginning its fifth year of work in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. It is critical, with recent changes in management at both locations (e.g. implementation of MPAs) as well as proposed changes (e.g. zoning to manage multiple human uses) that action is taken now to accurately describe and characterize the fish/macro-invertebrate populations in these areas. It is also important that BB work closely with the individuals responsible for recommending and implementing these management strategies. Recognizing this, BB has been collaborating with partners at the University of Puerto Rico, National Park Service, US Geological Survey and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources.To quantify patterns of spatial distribution and make meaningful interpretations, we must first have knowledge of the underlying variables determining species distribution. The basis for this work therefore, is the nearshore benthic habitats maps (less than 100 ft depth) created by NOAA's Biogeography Program in 2001 and NOS' bathymetry models. Using ArcView GIS software, the digitized habitat maps are stratified to select sampling stations. Sites are randomly selected within these strata to ensure coverage of the entire study region and not just a particular reef or seagrass area. At each site, fish, macro-invertebrates, and associated water quality and habitat information is then quantified following standardized protocols. By relating the data collected in the field back to the habitat maps and bathymetric models, BB is able to model and map species level and community level information. These protocols are standardized throughout the US Caribbean to enable quantification and comparison of reef fish abundance and distribution trends between locations. Armed with the knowledge of where "hot spots" of species richness and diversity are likely to occur in the seascape, the BB is in a unique position to answer questions about the efficacy of marine zoning strategies (e.g. placement of no fishing, anchoring, or snorkeling locations), and what locations are most suitable for establishing MPAs. Knowledge of the current status of fish/macro-invertebrate communities coupled with longer term monitoring will enable evaluation of management efficacy, thus it is essential to future management actions.

This fish and benthic composition database is the result of a multifaceted effort described below. The intent of this work is five fold: 1) To spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance, and size of both reef fishes and macro-invertebrates (conch, lobster, Diadema); 2) To relate this information to in-situ data collected on associated benthic composition parameters; 3) To use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting; 4) To establish the efficacy of those management decisions; and 5) To work with the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program to develop data collection standards and easily implemented methodologies for transference to other agencies and to work toward standardizing data collection throughout the US states and territories. Toward this end, the Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment's Biogeography Branch (BB) has been conducting research in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands since 2000 and 2001, respectively. It is critical, with recent changes in management at both locations (e.g. implementation of MPAs) as well as proposed changes (e.g. zoning to manage multiple human uses) that action is taken now to accurately describe and characterize the fish/macro-invertebrate populations in these areas. It is also important that BB work closely with the individuals responsible for recommending and implementing these management strategies. Recognizing this, BB has been collaborating with partners at the University of Puerto Rico, National Park Service, US Geological Survey and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources. To quantify patterns of spatial distribution and make meaningful interpretations, we must first have knowledge of the underlying variables determining species distribution. The basis for this work therefore, is the nearshore benthic habitats maps (less than 100 ft depth) created by NOAA's Biogeography Program in 2001 and NOS' bathymetry models. Using ArcView GIS software, the digitized habitat maps are stratified to select sampling stations. Sites are randomly selected within these strata to ensure coverage of the entire study region and not just a particular reef or seagrass area. At each site, fish, macro-invertebrates, and benthic composition information is then quantified following standardized protocols. By relating the data collected in the field back to the habitat maps and bathymetric models, BB is able to model and map species level and community level information. These protocols are standardized throughout the US Caribbean to enable quantification and comparison of reef fish abundance and distribution trends between locations. Armed with the knowledge of where "hot spots" of species richness and diversity are likely to occur in the seascape, the BB is in a unique position to answer questions about the efficacy of marine zoning strategies (e.g. placement of no fishing, anchoring, or snorkeling locations), and what locations are most suitable for establishing MPAs. Knowledge of the current status of fish/macro-invertebrate communities coupled with longer term monitoring will enable evaluation of management efficacy, thus it is essential to future management actions.

This fish and benthic composition database is the result of a multifaceted effort described below. The intent of this work is five fold: 1) To spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance, and size of both reef fishes and macro-invertebrate (conch, lobster, Diadema); 2) To relate this information to in-situ data collected on associated benthic composition parameters; 3) To use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting; 4) To establish the efficacy of those management decisions; and 5) To work with the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program to develop data collection standards and easily implemented methodologies for transference to other agencies and to work toward standardizing data collection throughout the US states and territories. Toward this end, the Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment's Biogeography Branch (BB) has been conducting research in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands since 2000 and 2001, respectively. It is critical, with recent changes in management at both locations (e.g. implementation of MPAs) as well as proposed changes (e.g. zoning to manage multiple human uses) that action is taken now to accurately describe and characterize the fish/macro-invertebrate populations in these areas. It is also important that BB work closely with the individuals responsible for recommending and implementing these management strategies. Recognizing this, BB has been collaborating with partners at the University of Puerto Rico, National Park Service, US Geological Survey and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources.To quantify patterns of spatial distribution and make meaningful interpretations, we must first have knowledge of the underlying variables determining species distribution. The basis for this work therefore, is the nearshore benthic habitats maps (less than 100 ft depth) created by NOAA's Biogeography Program in 2001 and NOS' bathymetry models. Using ArcView GIS software, the digitized habitat maps are stratified to select sampling stations. Sites are randomly selected within these strata to ensure coverage of the entire study region and not just a particular reef or seagrass area. At each site, fish, macro-invertebrates, and benthic composition information is then quantified following standardized protocols. By relating the data collected in the field back to the habitat maps and bathymetric models, BB is able to model and map species level and community level information. These protocols are standardized throughout the US Caribbean to enable quantification and comparison of reef fish abundance and distribution trends between locations. Armed with the knowledge of where "hot spots" of species richness and diversity are likely to occur in the seascape, the BB is in a unique position to answer questions about the efficacy of marine zoning strategies (e.g. placement of no fishing, anchoring, or snorkeling locations), and what locations are most suitable for establishing MPAs. Knowledge of the current status of fish/macro-invertebrate communities coupled with longer term monitoring will enable evaluation of management efficacy, thus it is essential to future management actions.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.

This product was developed as part of the project supported by the grant from and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Acidification Program under award NA18OAR0170430 to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The data product consists of water quality data for tidal 98 stations for 1984–2018. The source data used to generate this product were downloaded from the Chesapeake Bay Program’s (CBP) data hub. Out of the total of 255 monitoring stations in the Tidal Monitoring Program, we selected 98 with the long monitoring record (30 years or longer). The following variables were downloaded from the data hub at the native temporal and vertical resolution (between one and four cruises per month and approximately 10 depth levels sampled between 0 and 37 m) for 1984–2018: water temperature (T), salinity (S), pH, total alkalinity (TA), dissolved oxygen (DO) , and chlorophyll (Chl). All pH data prior to 1998 were removed because of the data quality concerns (Herrmann et al., 2020). Briefly, we found a dramatic difference in long-term trends between stations measured by institutions in the state of Virginia and stations measured by the state of Maryland, particularly from late spring to early fall. The boundary between the station groups runs east–west within the mesohaline portion of the bay, where the Potomac River estuary intersects the mainstem bay. The boundary separates strong negative linear trends to the south (Virginia stations) from neutral and weakly positive linear trends to the north (Maryland stations). For all variables, data entries marked with CBP’s “Problem” and “Qualifier” flags were removed. Additionally, all variables were scanned for extreme outliers: for each variable, data from all stations, depths, and times were combined into a single composite sample for which the 75th and 25th percentiles (i.e., the upper and lower quantiles) and the interquartile range (the difference between the upper and lower quantiles) were calculated. Extreme outliers were defined as the values falling outside of a certain number (censoring criterion) of interquartile ranges from the upper and lower quantiles.