Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • BCO-DMO Processing Description
• Data Files
• Supplemental Files
• Related Datasets
• Parameters
• Project Information
• Funding

See "Related Datasets" section for access to data and metadata from other datasets from the same surveys.

Fish surveys were conducted using visual counts of all fish on a given artificial reef. Fish size was visually estimated to the nearest cm using total length (TL). All counts were exhaustive and lasted from 1-10 minutes depending on the number of fish. We recorded visual observation of floy tags – this was done opportunistically and when possible the species and color of tag were recorded.

Survey overview:

Fish surveys ~3 min on free dive on each reef at each cluster; 12-15min for each cluster survey.

* Sheet "fish data" in submitted file FishSurveys2022_FinalNSF.xlsx (submitted to BCO-DMO 2024-04-18) was imported into the BCO-DMO data system as the primary table dataset.
* Sheet "metadata" contained multiple tables.
** The table with columns "date, notes" was exported added to the dataset as supplemental file fish_and_invert_survey_notes.csv."
** The note with heading "Survey overview" was added to the Methods & Sampling section of the metadata.
** The site information with columns "reef name,GPS data" was exported as a separate supplemental file reef_cluster_site_list.csv. Additional columns were added for the site description, and the separate lat, lon in decimal degree format.

* Column names adjusted to conform to BCO-DMO naming conventions designed to support broad re-use by a variety of research tools and scripting languages. [Only numbers, letters, and underscores. Can not start with a number]

* Date converted to ISO 8601 format

* columns cluster_lat,cluster_lon added to the fish data table from the site information (using reef name provided in "Cluster" column).

* Note: These data include currently unaccepted synonyms of the accepted taxon names. The supplemental file fish_and_invert_species_list.csv which includes names and identifiers for both the names used in the dataset and the equivalent currently accepted names (as of 2024-02-26).

NSF Award Abstract:
Tropical coastal marine ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves) are among the most productive ecosystems in the world providing important services, such as fisheries, to millions of people. Despite this, they are also among the most impaired ecosystems, necessitating improved understanding of the mechanisms that underpin their productivity. This project seeks to understand the key factors that drive ecosystem production in a degraded coastal ecosystem in Haiti using artificial reefs. Past research has shown that artificial reefs have substantial potential to increase the number and diversity of plants and animals, but the extent to which this can be achieved at scales relevant to society remains unknown. This project is constructing clusters of artificial reefs to test how (1) spatial arrangement and (2) fishing pressure (fished/not fished) influence the productivity of seagrass, coral, and fish over the course of four years. The fishing treatment is being implemented through collaborations with local fishers whereby small-scale no-take zones are created around three of the six artificial reef clusters. A unique aspect of the research is that it capitalizes on the experimental design to simultaneously achieve an important conservation initiative, while testing ecological theory. Community engagement and outreach are integrated directly into the research and local fishers are being surveyed to assess the extent to which fishing occurred on any of the artificial reefs. This research represents a novel effort to integrate experimentation with cutting-edge community-based conservation initiatives in one of the most impoverished regions of the world. The project is improving strategies for conservation and reef management.

Identifying the factors that regulate the structure and function of ecosystems is a fundamental challenge for ecological theory and applied science. This challenge is often framed within the context of Top-Down (TD) versus Bottom-Up (BU) regulation, but the extent to which this framework can predict processes in complex, real-world ecosystems is not fully understood. It is now widely recognized that TD/BU factors do not act in isolation. For example, in many ecosystems, consumers contribute to both TD (via consumption) and BU (via excretion) pathways. Environmental factors, including human-induced change, can further alter the nature of these interactions. Quantifying the strength of TD and BU pathways and the extent to which they regulate the structure and function in highly dynamic ecosystems requires an experimental system that is sufficiently tractable that all its components can be quantified, while still being representative of real ecosystems. To address this challenge, this research project creates a unique ecosystem-scale artificial reef (AR) experiment in Haiti to test how two factors (AR structure, and fishing pressure) alter the strength of independent and interactive TD and BU pathways to regulate the structure and function of real-world reef ecosystems. Over the course of four years, the production of seagrass (surrounding the ARs), coral (transplanted onto the ARs), and fish (in and around the ARs) is being measured, providing a quantitative assessment of ecosystem-level production across the two treatments. Linear and structural equation models are used to measure the independent and interactive strengths TD and BU pathways, and to identify the suite of directional relationships between each trophic level that best predict overall ecosystem production. Harnessing the ability to use ecosystem-scale experiments and quantify production across all trophic levels in a highly complex, real-world system enables an unprecedented test of TD/BU theory.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.