Eight-fjords shallow underwater videos

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 12 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Green L, Svensson L, Burman E, Germishuys J, Anton V, Obst M (2024). Eight-fjords shallow underwater videos. Version 1.2. Wildlife.ai. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt.gbif.org.nz/resource?r=gobin_example_dataset&v=1.2

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Wildlife.ai. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 653b41c5-f839-4df9-b6f5-cfb896ac2b52.  Wildlife.ai publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF New Zealand.

Keywords

Invasive species; alien species; non-indigenous species; exotic species; shallow water; coastal; Round goby; gobiidae; fish; crabs; BRUV; baited camera records; Invasive species; alien species; non-indigenous species; exotic species; shallow water; coastal; Round goby; gobiidae; fish; crabs; BRUV; baited camera records

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

These records cover shallow bays in Sweden's first test-bed for marine ecosystem-based management: The 8-fjords+ area. This area is a freshwater-influenced fjord system containing multiple Natura-2000 sites and a range of habitats including shallow and deep soft and hard bottoms. Records in the dataset are from 3-1 meters in depth, mainly centred around small marinas.

Taxonomic Coverage

All fish were identified to species or family level, Brachyuran crabs were identified to species level.

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

Sweden is now facing its first-ever biological invasion by a non-indigenous species (NIS) of fish (the round goby, Neogobius melanostomus) in a fully marine environment. This invasion event is unprecedented, and current knowledge severely limits any form of action to limit the range or the rate of the goby invasion. There are previously no successful eradications of the round goby, and there are no examples where marine invasive fish have been eradicated or limited by human ingenuity. The situation is also unique since the Swedish west-coast is a very different environment to the degraded and species poor Baltic Sea where the round goby is spreading rapidly. We cannot expect the invasion to occur identically in these two regions and we need new knowledge to analyze the situation. The purpose of the proposed studies is to provide Swedish agencies and the global research community with knowledge of how two important ecological processes can help to protect the marine coastal environments from rapidly becoming colonized by invasive fish. These two processes are (1) top down control from predation, and (2) lack of niche space due to high biodiversity. This knowledge will be obtained through three separate scientific studies where we aim to: (1) observe to what extent predators such as cod (Gadus morhua) and eel (Anguilla anguilla) prey on round goby; (2) relate biodiversity measurements to the density of round gobies over time. If the two studied processes are shown to mitigate round goby numbers, conservation of both predators and biodiversity can be used as ecological “bio-control” tools to limit the spread of the species. We also expect this knowledge to add to the importance of protecting predators and biodiversity as conservation goals by themselves, and lead to combined conservation strategies that are both cost-effective and highly sustainable.

Sampling Methods

Sampling with video cameras is a relatively common method for investigating flora and fauna in marine environments. When it comes to fish census, baited camera systems are often used (abbreviated as BRUV after the English "Baited Remote Underwater Video"), which can be placed on the seabed or freely suspended in the water column with the help of a buoy on the surface (see e.g., Sherman et al., 2020, and Cambra et al., 2021). An advantage of these systems compared to, for example, ROVs (remotely operated underwater vehicles) or drop-video (a type of "camera sled" dragged across the seabed) is that they are stationary and do not scare away fish through movements and sounds. However, this means that the camera covers a smaller area of water, and therefore bait is used to attract the fish nearby to move in front of the camera. The bait used is often scented food such as fish scraps and shrimp. For the detection of cryptobenthic fish (small, bottom-dwelling species that often hide in crevices or among vegetation), the BRUV method is still in the developmental stage. Because such small fish (especially bullheads) can be difficult to distinguish and identify on video, it is valuable to design camera systems that visualize their characteristics as effectively as possible. In this study, a system with neutral-colored "background boards" has been used, which the fish need to swim in front of to reach the bait. This way, characteristics such as color, pattern, and fin shape are visualized, improving the possibility of species identification. Video cameras baited with frozen shrimp (4 per camera, approximately 45 grams each in wet weight) were placed on the seabed either directly from a pier/dock when possible, or with the help of snorkelling. Each camera system was placed at a minimum distance of 30 meters from each other to avoid fish moving between the cameras during filming. The depth at which the cameras were placed varied between 0.6 – 3.2 meters. To control for lighting conditions, the video rig was always oriented so that the camera filmed northward (and thus received ample light against the background).

Method step description:

1. The team followed the methodology described in the SUBSIM software to analyse and publish the occurrences

Additional Metadata