Sampling errors and variability in video transects for assessment of reef fish assemblage structure and diversity.

ABSTRACT: Video monitoring is a rapidly evolving tool in aquatic ecological research because of its non-destructive ability to assess fish assemblages. Nevertheless, methodological considerations of video monitoring techniques are often overlooked, especially in more complex sampling designs, causing inefficient data collection, processing, and interpretation. In this study, we discuss how video transect sampling designs could be assessed and how the inter-observer variability, design errors and sampling variability should be quantified and accounted for. The study took place in the coastal areas of the Galapagos archipelago and consisted of a hierarchical repeated-observations sampling design with multiple observers. Although observer bias was negligible for the assessment of fish assemblage struct

SUBMITTER: Bruneel S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9312474 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature