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estimate species-specific absolute abundance, such as the 
Great Red Snapper Count (Stunz et al.”), rely on inte- 
gration of data across a wide spectrum of instrumenta- 
tion. Basin-scale efforts such as this require some form 
of calibration treatment obtained over a wide range of 
sampling conditions and habitats (e.g., water clarity and 
low to high relief) and across a variety of platforms and 
instruments capable of scaling to common units (e.g., fish 
density per unit area or volume). To achieve proper cali- 
bration, efforts such as those laid out in this paper will be 
necessary and will undoubtedly be very expensive in time, 
complexity, and expense. Without proper methods to cal- 
ibrate instruments against known densities, efforts such 
as those undertaken in this experiment, while interesting, 
might not result in desired outcomes. Thus targets such as 
absolute abundance will remain elusive or will be heavily 
reliant on poorly understood assumptions about vehicle 
sampling properties and their associated biases. 
Conclusions 
The test-bed experiment was logistically difficult to con- 
duct because many moving pieces had to be synchronized 
to produce coincident sampling volumes and useful data. 
Logistical difficulties included temporal synchronization 
of all sampling equipment, orientation of the MOUSS 
platforms perpendicular to the transect line transited 
by the vehicles, geolocation of cameras once deployed, 
and navigation of vehicles precisely down transect lines. 
Although the logistics of the experiment went smoothly 
and improved over time, it was equally difficult to detect 
interactions for specific fish species. Another issue is that 
manual annotation of videos is a slow process, and pro- 
ducing data sets therefore is a time intensive process that 
would be enhanced with automated approaches, partic- 
ularly those that can be used to generate data on small 
spatio-temporal scales (Shafait et al., 2017). A field exper- 
iment that would encompass all of the potential variables 
of interest (e.g., species movement patterns, water condi- 
tions, and vehicle effects) would be difficult to coordinate 
and control; therefore, a logical next step is to evaluate the 
question in a simulation-modeling framework (Kim and 
Wardle, 1998). 
Acknowledgments 
The authors would like to acknowledge the NMFS Office 
of Science and Technology for continued support through- 
out this 5-year strategic initiative. We would like to thank 
the Mississippi Laboratories of the NMFS Southeast 
? Stunz, G. W., W. F. Patterson III, S. P. Powers, J. H. Cowan 
Jr., J. R. Rooker, R. A. Ahrens, K. Boswell, L. Carleton, 
M. Catalano, J. M. Drymon et al. 2021. The great red snapper 
count: estimating the absolute abundance of age-2+ red snap- 
per (Lutjanus campechanus) in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, 152 p. 
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consort., Ocean Springs, MS. 
[Available from website.] 
Fisheries Science Center, the University of South Florida, 
and the Florida Institute of Oceanography for providing 
personnel and dockside support to stage and conduct this 
complicated experiment. We would also like to thank the 
crews of RV Pelican (LUMCON, Cocodrie, LA) and RV 
Weatherbird II (FIO, St. Petersburg, FL). 
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