1 Downloading the Data

The following code will retrieve NCRMP fish survey data for the Florida Keys 2024 and save it as a named object in your R environment

FKEYS2024 <- getRvcData(years = 2024, regions = "FLA KEYS")

the ‘regions’ parameter takes a specific formatted argument

“FLA KEYS” : Florida Keys (Miami/Dade south to Key West)
“DRY TORT” : Dry Tortugas
“SEFCRI” : Southeast Florida (Miami/Dade north to Martin County)
“FGBNMS” : Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
“PRICO” : Puerto Rico
“STTSTJ” : St. Thomas and St. John
“STX” : St. Croix

You can also download multiple years and/or regions into one object (see Section 3)

# and range of years 1999:2024
All_Keys <- getRvcData(years = 1999:2024, regions = "FLA KEYS") #All years in the Keys

# or 2 specific years in 2 specific regions
USVI <- getRvcData(years = c(2017, 2023), regions = c("STTSTJ", "STX")) #Only 2017 and 2023 in U.S. Virgin Islands

2 Structure of the data

When using the getRVCData() function, the following structure is returned and all other functions in the R-package expect this structure. The object returned is a list of 3 dataframes

  1. sample_data: numbers at length for each species (with some additional meta data)
  2. stratum_data: number of grid cells for each strata (this provided weighting factors)
  3. taxonomic_data: additional species information
glimpse(FKEYS2024)
List of 3
 $ sample_data   :'data.frame': 356254 obs. of  24 variables:
  ..$ PRIMARY_SAMPLE_UNIT  : int [1:356254] 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 ...
  ..$ YEAR                 : int [1:356254] 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 ...
  ..$ MONTH                : int [1:356254] 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 ...
  ..$ DAY                  : int [1:356254] 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 ...
  ..$ STATION_NR           : int [1:356254] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
  ..$ LAT_DEGREES          : num [1:356254] 24.5 24.5 24.5 24.5 24.5 ...
  ..$ LON_DEGREES          : num [1:356254] -81.9 -81.9 -81.9 -81.9 -81.9 ...
  ..$ DEPTH                : num [1:356254] 3.51 3.51 3.51 3.51 3.51 ...
  ..$ UNDERWATER_VISIBILITY: num [1:356254] 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 ...
  ..$ MAPGRID_NR           : int [1:356254] 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 2121978 ...
  ..$ HABITAT_CD           : chr [1:356254] "ISOL_LR" "ISOL_LR" "ISOL_LR" "ISOL_LR" ...
  ..$ ZONE_NR              : int [1:356254] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
  ..$ SUBREGION_NR         : int [1:356254] 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 ...
  ..$ MPA_NR               : int [1:356254] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
  ..$ SPECIES_NR           : int [1:356254] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 7 8 ...
  ..$ SPECIES_CD           : chr [1:356254] "ANT OCEL" "APO BINO" "MAL GILL" "MAL VERS" ...
  ..$ LEN                  : num [1:356254] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 6 0 ...
  ..$ NUM                  : num [1:356254] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.5 0.5 0 ...
  ..$ TIME_SEEN            : int [1:356254] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
  ..$ PROT                 : int [1:356254] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
  ..$ DEPTH_CLASS          : chr [1:356254] "D1" "D1" "D1" "D1" ...
  ..$ RUGOSITY_CLASS       : chr [1:356254] "R1" "R1" "R1" "R1" ...
  ..$ STRAT                : chr [1:356254] "FK01" "FK01" "FK01" "FK01" ...
  ..$ REGION               : chr [1:356254] "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" ...
 $ stratum_data  :'data.frame': 15 obs. of  7 variables:
  ..$ REGION     : chr [1:15] "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" "FLA KEYS" ...
  ..$ YEAR       : int [1:15] 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 2024 ...
  ..$ PROT       : int [1:15] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 ...
  ..$ STRAT      : chr [1:15] "FK01" "FK02" "FK03" "FK04" ...
  ..$ NTOT       : int [1:15] 4372 29583 15126 43717 16855 23296 20275 23328 447 766 ...
  ..$ GRID_SIZE  : int [1:15] 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 ...
  ..$ STAGE_LEVEL: int [1:15] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
 $ taxonomic_data:'data.frame': 487 obs. of  8 variables:
  ..$ SPECIES_CD: chr [1:487] "ABL HIAN" "ABU SAXA" "ABU TAUR" "ACA ASPE" ...
  ..$ FAMILY    : chr [1:487] "Belonidae" "Pomacentridae" "Pomacentridae" "Chaenopsidae" ...
  ..$ SCINAME   : chr [1:487] "Ablennes hians" "Abudefduf saxatilis" "Abudefduf taurus" "Acanthemblemaria aspera" ...
  ..$ COMNAME   : chr [1:487] "flat needlefish" "sergeant major" "night sergeant" "roughhead blenny" ...
  ..$ LC        : num [1:487] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
  ..$ LM        : num [1:487] NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
  ..$ WLEN_A    : num [1:487] NA 1.64e-05 NA 8.40e-06 8.40e-06 8.40e-06 NA 8.40e-06 NA 1.79e-05 ...
  ..$ WLEN_B    : num [1:487] NA 3.14 NA 2.96 2.96 ...

3 Available Data

As of Spring 2025

Year Dry Tortugas Florida Keys S.E. Florida Flower Gardens Puerto Rico St. Thomas/John St. Croix
1999 x x
2000 x x
2001 x
2002 x
2003 x
2004 x x
2005 x
2006 x x
2007 x
2008 x x
2009 x
2010 x x
2011 x
2012 x x
2013 x
2014 x x x
2015 x
2016 x x x x
2017 x x
2018 x x x x
2019 x x x
2020
2021 x x x x x
2022 x x x
2023 x x x x x
2024 x x x x