Identifying marine fish and estimating fish abundance using underwater community observatories

    

Mauricio Carrasquilla-Henao, Dave Riddell & Isabelle Côté

Advances in Biology Laboratory Education, 2023, Volume 43

https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v43.art5

Supplemental Materials: https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v43.sup6

Abstract

Many undergraduate biology students are fascinated by the ocean, marine organisms and how these organisms interact with the environment yet have no access to the marine environment. In this laboratory we bring students the opportunity from across the world to learn about marine fishes from the Pacific Northwest by collecting data from 2019 in an underwater camera from one of Ocean Networks Canada?s cabled observatories. In this hands-on activity, students will learn to collect and annotate data from video clips and estimate fish abundance and relative abundance. Students will plot their data against temporal variables (month, season, and time of day) and compare how total fish abundance and species-specific fish abundance vary across these variables.

Keywords:  ecology, fish abundance, community structure, underwater cameras

University of Victoria (2022)