Megafauna counts by taxon in images collected during three surveys (December 25, 2019, April 7 and 9, 2021) with deep-submergence vehicles at inactive sulfide mounds on the East Pacific Rise.

Abstract

This dataset includes counts by taxon for megafauna in images collected during surveys with deep-submergence vehicles at inactive sulfide mounds near the 9 50’ N hydrothermal vent field on the East Pacific Rise. Images were collected with a down-looking digital still camera. We provide image areas for estimating megafauna density (counts per area of seafloor). Here we provide data from three surveys: one during HOV Alvin Dive 5044 at Lucky’s Mound on 25 December 2019 on cruise AT42-21 and two during ROV Jason II Dives 1309 and 1311, on the oceanic rise (between Lucky’s Mound and Sentry Spire) on 7 April 2021 and at Sentry Spire on 9 April 2021, respectively, on cruise RR2102. Megafauna were manually annotated to morphotype using ImageJ software. Morphotypes were identified to the lowest taxonomic level and assigned to a feeding mode. This dataset is provided in two formats: long-format comma-separated variable (csv) file and wide-format Excel (xlsx) file. This dataset is analyzed in a manuscript by Meneses et al. (2024).

For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/932975