Scyphozoan species abundance and water parameters in the Klang Strait during June 2010-December 2011

This is the raw (unprocessed) datasets for scyphozoan jellyfish abundance (catch per unit effort: no. of individual/net) and environmental water parameters (salinity, temperature, pH, DO, turbidity, current speed) collected during the monthly sampling routine (June 2010-December 2011) and 24-hour sampling series conducted during the dry period of the southwest monsoon (June-July 2011) and wet period of the northeast monsoon (November-December 2011) at the Klang Strait, Malaysia.

Jellyfish samples were collected during daylight flood tide occasion of the full moon on a monthly basis for 19 months (June 2010-December 2011). Sampling times were fixed at approximately six hours during the flood tide. To investigate the effect of rainfall (dry/wet period), moon phases, diel cycle and tide cycle on scyphozoan abundance, two additional sampling series were conducted on the driest period (June – July, SWM) and wettest period (November – December, NEM) of the year based on past data (Malaysian Meteorological Department). At each dry and wet period, jellyfish were collected at approximately 6-hourly sampling intervals over a 24-hour cycle every week for a month. The samplings thus covered all daily tides in the tide cycle (two flood tides and two ebb tides), day and night (diel cycle), and four consecutive moon phases (1^st quarter moon, full moon, 3^rd quarter moon, new moon). The number of bag nets (as replicates) set during samplings were highly dependent on weather condition and ranged from 8 to 20 nets per sampling occasion. All jellyfish from the bag nets were instantly examined and photographed in the field for identification using the keys and descriptions of Rizman-Idid et al. (2016), Jarms and Morandini (2019), and Syazwan et al. (2020b).

Physical water parameters were obtained monthly at the surface layer (0.5 - 1.0 m depth from the surface) of the water column during day time (monthly sampling series), and at approximately two-hourly intervals over 24 hours (24-hour sampling series).

Legends: SWM = southwest monsoon; IN = inter-monsoon; NEM = northeast monsoon; D = dry period; W = wet period; 1Q = 1^st quarter moon; FM = full moon; 3Q = 3^rd quarter moon; NM = new moon; D = day; N = night; F = flood tide; E = ebb tide