Benthic community cover and counts in Sitka Sound and Torch Bay, Alaska from 1988 to 2019 (NCEI Accession 0291589)

This dataset contains data collected in the Coastal Waters of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia and Gulf of Alaska from 1988-05-08 to 2019-08-07. These data include depth. The instruments used to collect these data include Global Positioning System Receiver. These data were collected by James A. Estes, Kristy Kroeker, and Peter T. Raimondi of University of California-Santa Cruz as part of the "CAREER: Energy fluxes and community stability in a dynamic, high-latitude kelp ecosystem (High latitude kelp dynamics)" project. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) submitted these data to NCEI on 2021-07-14.

The following is the text of the dataset description provided by BCO-DMO:

Acquisition Description:
Observations were made during May through September during six years ranging from 1988 through 2019. At each site twenty quadrats were placed at random locations along a transect line. Benthic species were either counted or the cover of the species was estimated in each quadrat. The species recorded were algae and kelps including giant kelp, bull kelp, sieve kelp, ribbon kelp, acid kelp, ribbed kelp, suction-cup kelp, and others.

In 2019, only Agarum fimbriatum was counted, but prior to that year, the sieve kelp that was counted included all Agarum species.

Small kelp is defined as kelp too small to distinguish the genus, typically less than ten centimeters (<10cm)

GPS coordinates are only relevant for data collected after 1988