National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: benthic images collected from stratified random sites (StRS) across the Hawaiian Archipelago from 2016-07-13 to 2016-09-27 (NCEI Accession 0164293)

The data described here are benthic habitat imagery that result from benthic photo-quadrat surveys conducted along transects at stratified random sites across the Hawaiian archipelago in 2016 as a part of Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys for corals and fish. A stratified random sampling (StRS) design was employed to survey the coral reef ecosystems throughout the U.S. Pacific regions. The survey domain encompassed the majority of the mapped area of reef and hard bottom habitats in the 0-30 m depth range. The stratification scheme included island, reef zone, and depth in all regions, as well as habitat structure type in the Main Hawaiian Islands. Sampling effort was allocated based on strata area and sites were randomly located within strata. Sites were surveyed using photo-quadrats along transects to collect benthic imagery to ultimately produce estimates of relative abundance (percent cover), frequency of occurrence, benthic community taxonomic composition and relative generic richness. The StRS design effectively reduces estimate variance through stratification using environmental covariates and by sampling more sites rather than sampling more transects at a site. Therefore, site-level estimates and site to site comparisons should be used with caution.