Standardised abundances of fish observed in and around cold-water corals in the North-East Atlantic from Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) observations made during cruise JC073.

The dataset was collected to assess the importance of cold-water corals as habitat for deep-sea demersal fish across four nested spatial scales in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean (Mingulay Reef Complex, Hebrides Terrace Seamount, Rockall Bank and Logachev Mounds) using opportunistically-collected video footage from a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) between 19th May and 13th June 2012 during the 'Changing Oceans Expedition 2012', RRS James Cook Cruise JC073. At the finest scale, the 23 video transects within this dataset were divided into 'habitat patches' according to the dominant seabed substratum (one of eight categories). A number of transects (identified by the 'survey number' in the dataset) were conducted within a 'reef', and a number of 'reefs' were contained within each of the four 'regions' surveyed. The dataset contains summary data describing the mean position, mean depth, estimated length, mean slope, dominant 'habitat' (substratum) type and mean relative abundance (N/km) of observed fish species for each habitat patch.