Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania , Private Bag 49, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
Sci Data. 2014 May 27;1:140007. doi: 10.1038/sdata.2014.7. eCollection 2014.
The assessment of patterns in macroecology, including those most relevant to global biodiversity conservation, has been hampered by a lack of quantitative data collected in a consistent manner over the global scale. Global analyses of species' abundance data typically rely on records aggregated from multiple studies where different sampling methods and varying levels of taxonomic and spatial resolution have been applied. Here we describe the Reef Life Survey (RLS) reef fish dataset, which contains 134,759 abundance records, of 2,367 fish taxa, from 1,879 sites in coral and rocky reefs distributed worldwide. Data were systematically collected using standardized methods, offering new opportunities to assess broad-scale spatial patterns in community structure. The development of such a large dataset was made possible through contributions of investigators associated with science and conservation agencies worldwide, and the assistance of a team of over 100 recreational SCUBA divers, who undertook training in scientific techniques for underwater surveys and voluntarily contributed skills, expertise and their time to data collection.
宏观生态学模式的评估，包括对全球生物多样性保护最相关的模式，一直受到缺乏在全球范围内以一致方式收集的定量数据的阻碍。对物种丰度数据的全球分析通常依赖于从多个研究中汇总的记录，这些研究采用了不同的采样方法和不同程度的分类和空间分辨率。在这里，我们描述了珊瑚礁生命调查（RLS）珊瑚鱼数据集，其中包含 134759 个丰度记录，涉及全球分布的珊瑚和岩石礁 1879 个地点的 2367 种鱼类。数据是使用标准化方法系统收集的，为评估群落结构的广泛空间模式提供了新的机会。通过与世界各地的科学和保护机构有关的调查人员的贡献，以及一个由 100 多名休闲水肺潜水员组成的团队的协助，才有可能开发出这样一个大型数据集，这些潜水员接受了水下调查科学技术的培训，并自愿贡献技能、专业知识和时间进行数据收集。
