Presence-absence records for four cold-water coral taxa on the seamounts of Cabo Verde (NW Africa)

Presence-absence records for four cold-water coral (CWC) taxa (Enallopsammia rostrata, Acanella arbuscula, Metallogorgia spp. and Paramuricea spp.) were gathered to conduct distribution models on seamounts (Cadamosto, Nola, Senghor and Cabo Verde) of the Cabo Verde archipelago (NW Africa), covering a bathymetric range from 2100 to 750 m water depth. Data were extracted from video footage collected with Remotely Operated Vehicles during the M80/3 Meteor (2010) and the iMirabilis2 (2021) research expeditions. Video data from the iMirabilis2 expedition was analysed, quantitively, using the open-source software BIIGLE (Langenkämper et al. 2017). Observations from five continuous 1 to 2 km-long video transects between 2000 and 1400 m depth at Cadamosto Seamount were converted into presence-absence data points. Similar data were not available for the seamounts explored during M80/3 Meteor. However, all the available images and short video clips from that expedition were analysed to identify presence and absence points for each of the four target CWC taxa. All the available presence/absence data from the two expeditions was transformed into one point per grid cell of a 100 m resolution bathymetry grid, with the prevalence of the presence records over the absence records, in grid cells where both categories overlapped.