whelt911 / FHE_Fish_Sampling

Data and preliminary analysis of fish sampled through the collaborative Fish Habitat Enhancement Project through RI DEM and TNC

Fish Habitat Enhancement Project -- Fish Sampling

Purpose

The intention this project is to determine the efficacy of utilizing oyster reefs to enhance the production of recreationally and commercially important juvenile finfish, such as:

Tautog

Black Sea Bass

Scup

Winter Flounder

Summer Flounder

The experiment takes a BACI design approach where we have 4 replicates of 3 treatments:

Control (unimproved substrate)

Unseeded reef (no oysters, only shell)

Seeded reef (oysters and shell)

Data cleaning & exploratory analysis

data_import_and_cleaning.R

This script reads in:

Gillnet_Query.txt

EelPot_Query.txt

MinnowTrap_Query.txt

and saves them as R objects (also included).

These scripts contain the 2016 fish sampling by 3 sampling methods.

compare_size_dist.R

This script reads in data from our long term seine survey to compare fish caught by length with our 3 sampling methods. This comparison will allow us to determine whether our sampling methods are properly representing the fish assemblage in the ponds.

Work in Progress

We are currently working on comparing the 3 treatments across the season to determine if treatment has an effect on species composition and abundance.