Fish are an essential source of global food. Fishery‐independent data is critical to fisheries assessment and management. The uncertainties created by changing methods to collect this data must be understood. In the U.S. Northeast Atlantic, a drop camera survey of Atlantic sea scallops is a critical source of fishery‐independent data. From 1999 to 2016 the primary sampling unit of the survey was an analog 2.8 m² image. In 2017 this image was replaced with a digital 2.3 m² image. Here the key uncertainties associated with this change, an increased ability to detect small scallops and altered estimates of size frequencies and densities due to the survey's methods in the context of the smaller image size, are explored. Scallop detection differences were quantified using a maximum likelihood model and paired analog and digital images. The proportion of scallops measured by size in actual and simulated data and different methods of counting scallops along the edges of images were compared to explore these uncertainties. More scallops were detected in the digital images until scallops were greater than 75 mm in shell height, indicating the models developed here are needed to adjust scallop counts for analysis incorporating juveniles and data from the two cameras. The proportion of scallops measured did not match the simulation and was not linked to quadrat size. There was no significant difference in scallop density with different counting methods. This investigation spurred by altering the methods of a well‐established survey provided confidence in results with potential avenues for fine‐tuning.

中文翻译：

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在光学勘测中调查相机改进所带来的不确定性

鱼是全球粮食的重要来源。与渔业无关的数据对于渔业评估和管理至关重要。必须了解通过更改收集数据的方法而产生的不确定性。在美国东北大西洋，对大西洋扇贝的跌落相机调查是独立于渔业的数据的重要来源。从1999年到2016年，调查的主要采样单位是2.8 m ²的模拟图像。在2017年，此图像被数字2.3 m ²取代图片。在此探讨了与这种变化相关的主要不确定性，即在较小图像尺寸的情况下，由于调查方法的原因，提高了检测小扇贝的能力以及改变了尺寸频率和密度的估计值。扇贝检测差异使用最大似然模型以及成对的模拟图像和数字图像进行量化。比较了实际和模拟数据中按尺寸测量的扇贝比例，以及沿图像边缘计数扇贝的不同方法，以探索这些不确定性。在数字图像中检测到更多的扇贝，直到扇贝的壳高超过75毫米为止，这表明需要此处开发的模型来调整扇贝计数，以便结合青少年和来自两个摄像机的数据进行分析。所测量的扇贝比例与模拟不符，并且与四边形的大小无关。不同计数方法的扇贝密度无显着差异。通过改变一个完善的调查方法激发了这项调查，使人们对结果充满信心，并有可能进行微调。