Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa recorded by submarine as evidence of the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems, Antarctic Peninsula - data

John Hocevar1, Laura Meller2, Susanne Lockhart3, Yi-Ming Gan4

1 Greenpeace USA, , United States; 2 Greenpeace Nordic, , Finland; 3 Southern Benthics, , United States; 4 Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, , Belgium

Corresponding author(s): John Hocevar (john.hocevar@greenpeace.org)Laura Meller (laura.meller@greenpeace.org)Susanne Lockhart (SouthernBenthics@outlook.com), Yi-Ming Gan (data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Hocevar J, Meller L, Lockhart S (2022): Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa recorded by submarine as evidence of the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems, Antarctic Peninsula - data. v1.3. SCAR - AntOBIS. Dataset/Samplingevent. https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=greenpeace_2018-2022&v=1.3

Abstract

“Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa recorded by submarine as evidence of the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems, Antarctic Peninsula  - data” is a sampling event type dataset published by AntOBIS. This resource supplements the publications listed in the bibliographic citation section.
This dataset contains records of taxonomic groups that are considered VME-IT by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Resources (CCAMLR) and their relative percent abundances compared to non-VME-IT and bare substrate based on video footage captured by submarine deployed by the MY Arctic Sunrise during their Antarctica expeditions. The first took place in 2018 and focused within the Gerlache Strait and along the western Antarctic Peninsula and the Antarctic Sound in January 2018. Dives were conducted beginning 19th to 27th January 2018. A second expedition took place in 2022 and focused along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in the Vegas Basin and the Erebus and Terror Gulf. Dives were conducted from 26th February to 6th March 2022. The data are published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes locality, coordinates, event date, depth, sampling protocol, sampling effort, occurrence status, vernacular name, scientific name and taxa classification. Multimedia associated with this resource is available at Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6760063
This dataset is published by SCAR-AntOBIS under the license CC-BY 4.0. Please follow the guidelines from the SCAR and IPY Data Policies (https://www.scar.org/excom-meetings/xxxi-scar-delegates-2010-buenos-aires-argentina/4563-scar-xxxi-ip04b-scar-data-policy/file/) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, please contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via data-biodiversity-aq@naturalsciences.be. Issues with dataset can be reported at https://github.com/biodiversity-aq/data-publication/
This dataset is part of the Southern Benthics VME project in conjunction with Greenpeace International which conducted the expedition.

Keywords: Occurrence, VULNERABLE MARINE ECOSYSTEM, VME, CCAMLR, ANTARCTICA, SPONGES, SEA FANS/SEA WHIPS, CORALS, INDICATOR TAXA

Project details

Project title: Greenpeace Antarctic Expeditions
Personnel: Susanne Lockhart, John Hocevar, Laura Meller
Funding: This project is funded by Greenpeace.

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/resource?r=greenpeace_2018-2022

Taxonomic coverage

Taxonomic ranks
Kingdom: Animalia, Chromista
Phylum: Porifera, Cnidaria, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Hemichordata, Chordata, Foraminifera

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Antarctic Peninsula
Coordinates: 64°31'12''S and 62°34'33.6''S Latitude; 62°32'34.8''W and 56°16'55.2''W Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 19, 2018 - March 6, 2022

Methods

Method step description: 
- . 	The seabed was surveyed by video/photographic imagery using a Dual DeepWorker 2000 submarine (Nuytco Research Ltd.). As described on Nuytco’s website “The Dual DeepWorker 2000 is a two-person, one atmosphere submersible that can operate in depths up to 2000 feet. Each person has a 24-inch diameter acrylic viewing dome, which gives an expansive field of view and is used to enter/exit the submersible. The Dual DeepWorker 2000 has a favorable weight to power ratio and six thrusters”. It was equipped with an HD (H.264, Blu-Ray Codec) camera in 2018 and  with a Sony PXW-Z90 (PXWZ90) XDCAM Compact 4K Camcorder with Exmor RS CMOS Sensor and 12x Zoom Lens in 2022. For both expeditions the camera was mounted with a 2-point laser measurement system set at 20 cm. Benthic invertebrate samples for taxonomic determinations were collected using a HydroNewt Manipulator arm controlled by the pilot via a joystick. All attempts were made to maintain a consistent speed, distance off-bottom and camera angle.
- . 	The video footage was edited using Final Cut Pro X (www.apple.com)  in 2018 and using DaVince Resolve 17 (www.blackmagicdesign.com) in 2022.
- . 	Footage clean-up methodology to remove unusable sequences was similar for both datasets. Edited out of the footage were sequences that were considered off-transect or that were in some way unsuitable for analysis. For example, descent/ascent, pauses to relay vitals Topside, pauses to film assemblages of interest, close-up footage of live and in situ invertebrates for aiding taxonomic determinations and times spent collecting specimens. Also edited out are sequences where the submarine was traveling too fast or too far from the substrate, silt obscured the view or anytime we veered off the heading given to us from Topside, or where filming was deemed off-transect. The analysis methodology was also similar both years and within the  associated peer-review (Lockhart & Hocevar, 2021). Determinations/identifications of organisms in the still images are always supplemented/aided by the original video footage (which can be clearer than the frame grabs and which also contains non-transect zoomed-in footage) as well as specimen collections deposited with the California Academy of Sciences (Acquisition #1330).
Study extent description: This dataset describes the occurrence and distribution of taxa deemed indicative of the presence of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem by CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Marine Living Resources) during the Greenpeace expeditions in 2018 (GP18) and in 2022 (GP22)  in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1) during January 2018 and February/March 2022.
Sampling description: The seabed was surveyed by video/photographic imagery using a Dual DeepWorker 2000 submarine (Nuytco Research Ltd.). Research submarine video survey and sampling was conducted aboard the dutch vessel M/Y Arctic Sunrise in January 2018 and between 25 February to 6 March 2022 within Subarea 48.1.
Quality control description: - All records were validated.
- Coordinates were converted into decimal latitude and decimal longitude and plotted on map to verify the actual geographical location corresponds to its locality.
- All scientific names were checked for typo and matched to the species information backbone of Worlds Register of Marine Species (http://marinespecies.org/) and LSID were assigned to each taxa as scientificNameID.
- Event date and time were converted into ISO 8601 and verified with the data providers.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa recorded by submarine as evidence of the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems, Antarctic Peninsula - data
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.biodiversity.aq/archive.do?r=greenpeace_2018-2022
Publication date of data: 2022-08-09
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2022-07-01
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
WG-EMM-18/35. Lockhart, S. & Hocevar, J. (2018) Evidence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems documented via submarine in the Antarctic Sound and Gerlache Strait (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
WG-EMM-22/34. Lockhart, S. and Izendooren, R. (2022) Evidence of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem documented by tourist submarine off Cape Well-Met, Vega Island, Eastern Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia.
WG-EMM-22/46. Lockhart, S., Downey, R., Garcia-Roa, R., Hocevar, J. and Meller L. (2022) Vulerable marine ecosystems documented via submarine in the Bransfield Stait and the Eastern Antarctic Peninsula (Subarea 48.1). CCAMLR. Hobart, Australia
Lockhart, Susanne J., and John Hocevar. "Combined Abundance of All Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa Inadequate as Sole Determiner of Vulnerability, Antarctic Peninsula." Frontiers in Marine Science (2021): 1238. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.577761 
Lockhart, Susanne, Hocevar, John, & Meller, Laura. (2022). Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem Indicator Taxa recorded by submarine as evidence of the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems, Antarctic Peninsula - images (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6760064