A comparison of density and length of pacific groundfishes observed from 2 survey vehicles: A manned submersible and a remotely operated vehicle

Abstract

Visual surveys of seafloor communities in deep water are becoming more common and provide fishery-independent abundance estimates that could improve stock assessments for some groundfish species. However, limitations of the survey vehicle must be considered when developing methods. To that end, we estimated densities of demersal fishes from 28 paired strip-transect surveys, using a manned submersible (a human-occupied vehicle, HOV) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in 3 types of habitats (high-relief rock, low-relief mixed rock, and soft sediments) at water depths of 75–315 m off central California. Differences in fish detection, identification, and measurements were observed between vehicles (e.g., densities of unidentified fishes, unidentified rockfishes, and unidentified species of Sebastomus were significantly higher in ROV surveys). Species most closely associated with the seafloor were observed at higher densities in HOV surveys than in ROV surveys—a result possibly due to the greater reactions of fish to the ROV. The percentage of fish for which we could not estimate size was greater from video images collected with the ROV than from in situ observations made from the HOV. Results of our study will be useful for evaluation of the limitations and biases of these survey vehicles in assessments of demersal fishes.