In this dataset, we analyzed daytime casts (09:00-16:00) of both discrete bottle data and continuous CTD casts from CalCOFI stations restricted to an area from La Jolla, California to Point Conception and 215 km maximum offshore. This dataset has combined bottle and CTD casts to represent the date range 1984-2019. We used the oxygen and irradiance measurements to determine the visual luminoxyscape for each of the larval species. This range was bounded by the oxygen (partial pressure) where the pO2 would permit 50% minimum retinal function (V50; 13, 7.2, 10.2, and 6.8 kPa for larvae of 'Doryteuthis opalescens', 'Octopus bimaculatus', 'Metacarcinus gracilis', and 'Pleuroncodes planipes', respectively), and where there is sufficient irradiance for a visual response (0.0311 µmol photons m-2 s-1) for each species. Additionally, oxygen limits for metabolism were used to determine the depth of occurrence of the Pcrit (the oxygen below which the animal cannot maintain a constant metabolic rate). The depths of occurrence for metabolic limits were determined for larvae of 'D. opalescens' and 'O. bimaculatus'.

Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Related Datasets
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Project Information
• Funding

This dataset is a subset of data collected by the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) long-term monitoring system. All information regarding the sampling program can be found on https://calcofi.org/about/. Briefly, CalCOFI and the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS) samples a random array within a gridded station map during quarterly cruises and conducts vertical hydrographic casts to ~500-meters (m) depth (or 10 m above bottom where bottom depth < 500 m). More information can be found at: https://calcofi.org/index.php. All data used can be found in their original form at: https://calcofi.org/data/oceanographic-data/ctd-cast-files/.

In this analysis, we used data from CalCOFI stations restricted to an area from La Jolla, California to Point Conception (Line 80.0- Line 93.3; 32.95-34.46 °N at shoreline) and 215 kilometers maximum offshore (Station 60; 119.57-121.150 °W). We analyzed daytime casts (09:00-16:00) of both discrete bottle data and continuous CTD casts. This dataset has combined bottle and CTD casts to represent the date range 1984-2019. We used the oxygen and irradiance measurements to determine the visual luminoxyscape for each of the larval species. This range was bounded by the oxygen (partial pressure) where the pO2 would permit 50% minimum retinal function (V50; 13, 7.2, 10.2, and 6.8 kPa for larvae of Doryteuthis opalescens, Octopus bimaculatus, Metacarcinus gracilis, and Pleuroncodes planipes, respectively), and where there is sufficient irradiance for a visual response (0.0311 µmol photons m-2 s-1) for each species.

The "limits" are calculating depths where those oxygen and irradiance requirements would no longer be met. This would be the "visual luminoxyscape depth" (VLD); these depths are presented in the metadata file, “Metadata.Max.Depth.csv.” The limits used to calculate the VLD are “Do.50”, “Ob.50”, “Mg.50”, etc. Oxygen limits for visual physiology were taken from McCormick et al., 2019 (see below for reference).

Additionally, oxygen limits for metabolism were used to determine the depth of occurrence of the Pcrit (the oxygen below which the animal cannot maintain a constant metabolic rate). This was calculated in McCormick, 2019. The depths of occurrence for metabolic limits were determined for larvae of D. opalescens and O. bimaculatus. The dataset columns associated with this are “Do.met” and “Ob.met”.

Instruments:
Full details of the instrumentation on the CalCOFI CTD can be found here: https://calcofi.org/sampling-info/methods/bottle-sampling-methods/. Wherever possible, we used the cruise-corrected data in the "final" cast files provided by CalCOFI, indicating the files already QC by CalCOFI data managers.

Code:
There are 3 R files associated with this dataset: Luminox_May21_Part1_ann.R, Luminox_May21_Part2_ann.R, and Luminox_May21_Part3_ann.R. These are further described in the attached file "Luminoxyscape_Code_Description_of_Files.txt". In general:
The code (separated into 3 parts for simplicity and organization) is the entire code dataset from the Luminoxyscape project. The code covers everything including the quality-control for data downloaded directly from CalCOFI (https://calcofi.org/data/oceanographic-data/ctd-cast-files/) in Part 1, the analysis of maximum depths in Part 2 (associated with data "Luminoxyscape maximum depth", and the final analysis for the paper (McCormick et al., Limnology and Oceanography Letters, accepted) including code for all statistics in the analysis and graphs used in the figures. The code is clean and works, but is designed to show the process of the analysis for the project, rather than direct reproducibility. Contact information is included for those who wish to ask questions. All code was run using R (v3.6.3) run through RStudio (v. 2021.09.0).

Data Processing:Full details on the CTD processing procedure can be found here: https://calcofi.org/sampling-info/methods/bottle-sampling-methods/

Programs used to analyze data include SeaBird SBEDataProcessing version 7.26.7

BCO-DMO Processing:
- Converted dates to ISO8601 date format in a new column;
- Adjusted field/parameter names to comply with BCO-DMO naming conventions;
- Missing data identifier ‘NA’ replaced with 'nd' (BCO-DMO's default missing data identifier);
- Added a conventional header with dataset name, PI names, version date;
- In the ENSO_Cat column, replaced "La Niña" with "La Nina" and "El Niño" with "El Nino".

Coverage: Southern California Bight, Northeast Pacific Ocean

NSF abstract:
Oxygen is being lost in the ocean worldwide as a result of ocean warming and the input of nutrients from land. Vision requires a large amount of oxygen, and may be less effective or require more light when oxygen is in short supply. This is especially true for active marine animals with complex eyes and visual capabilities, including active arthropods (crabs), cephalopods (squid), and fish. The California coastal waters exhibit a sharp drop in oxygen and light with increasing water depth. This project examines how visual physiology and ecology in young (larval) highly visual marine animals respond to oxygen loss, with a focus on key fisheries and aquaculture species. Experiments and observations will test the hypothesis that oxygen stress will change the light required for these organisms to see effectively, influencing the water depths where they can live and survive. The project will provide interdisciplinary experiences to students and an early career scientist and inform both the public (through outreach at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and policy makers about the effects of oxygen decline in the ocean.

Negative effects of oxygen loss on vision have been described for humans and other terrestrial organisms, but never in the marine environment, despite the large changes in oxygen that can occur with depth and over time in the ocean, and the high metabolic demand of visual systems. This project will test the effects of low oxygen on vision in 3 combinations of eye design and photo-transduction mechanisms: compound eye with rhabdomeric photoreceptors (arthropods), simple eye with rhabdomeric photoreceptors (cephalopods), and simple eye with ciliary photoreceptors (fish). A series of oxygen- and light-controlled laboratory experiments will be conducted on representative taxa of each group including the tuna crab, Pleuroncodes planipes; the market squid, Doryteuthis opalescens, and the white sea bass, Atractoscion nobilis. In vivo electrophysiology and behavioral phototaxis experiments will identify new oxygen metrics for visual physiology and function, and will be compared to metabolic thresholds determined in respiration experiments. Hydrographic data collected over 3 decades by the CalCOFI program in the Southern California Bight will be evaluated with respect to visual and metabolic limits to determine the consequences of oxygen variation on the critical luminoxyscape (range of oxygen and light conditions required for visual physiology and function in target species) boundary in each species. Findings for the three vision-based functional groups may test whether oxygen-limited visual responses offer an additional explanation for the shoaling of species distributions among highly visual pelagic taxa in low oxygen, and will help to focus future research efforts and better understand the stressors contributing to habitat compression with expanding oxygen loss in the ocean.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.