Dungeness Crab Megalopae
CDFW Dungeness Crab Megalopae
cdfw_dungeness-crabCDFWCC BY 4.0v2026.09.11ingested
- years
- 1984–2014
- observations
- 1,456
- sampling events
- 523
- stations
- 56
- species
- 1
- depth
- 0–223 m
Overview
Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister) megalopae and larval decapods picked from archived CalCOFI oblique-tow plankton samples, examined for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Two efforts: a 2008-2014 time series of 310 sorted samples (A. Klemmedson, 2015) yielding 24 M. magister megalopae from 14 samples, and 216 archived samples from the 1949-2009 sorting log that were examined and found free of M. magister (1984-2009, E. Jones, as of 2012-02-15). Only examined samples are published — the log’s remaining unsorted rows are a fact of the archive’s inventory, not a sample of this dataset. Spring cruises, CalBOBL oblique tows, lines < 80 / stations < 90. Counts are occurrence in the examined aliquot, not standardized density. Sorting was performed at the SIO Pelagic Invertebrate Collection, where the removed megalopae are archived in vials.
Open with the provider
- Q14 link_data_source — open
Coverage
1 variable
Species and taxa
- Decapoda decapods 620
- Metacarcinus magister Dungeness crab 526
- Cancridae rock crabs 310
Life stages
megalopazoea
Access
Every endpoint this dataset can be reached through, grouped by how you would use it. Each name is the link; the copy button beside it copies the address. Everything is in the release record and was answered when the release was cut.
Apps that read this dataset from the release. The icons after a name are the app’s lenses — the spatial grain it shows the data at.
Every way to have the bytes, by source. Nothing here asks you to register first.
Tables from the release (Parquet)
The release’s own tables, as the parquet objects it is frozen from — the same bytes every app and package below reads. A table this dataset shares with others holds every dataset’s rows, so filter on dataset_key; a partition holds only this dataset’s. since is the release whose rows these are: an unchanged table keeps its object.
CF netCDF
One self-describing file, for a tool that reads netCDF.
how far this file is CF
CF-1.10 where CF applies (coordinates, units, standard names, time). The subsample -> tow -> occurrence hierarchy uses netCDF-4 groups with explicit parent_index links; CF defines no feature type for this nesting.
ERDDAP (erddap.calcofi.io)
One ERDDAP dataset per grain. Subset in the browser or query it from a script; for netCDF take the CF file above.
- length/stage frequency
- one row per size or stage class of a specimen, under the occurrence it belongs to
- observations
- one row per measurement — value, units and quality flag — joined to the sampling event it was taken on
- sampling events
- one row per cast, tow or transect: when, where and how it was sampled, with the effort that scales it
From the provider
The dataset as its provider publishes it, before CalCOFI ingested it.
The same release, from a script or a browser SQL shell.
Packages
The whole release, pinned to a version, with the citation one call away.
con <- calcofi4r::cc_get_db()
calcofi4r::cc_cite("cdfw_dungeness-crab")
con = calcofi4py.cc_get_db()
calcofi4py.cite("cdfw_dungeness-crab")
DuckDB, anywhere
No CalCOFI package needed: each table above is a plain parquet object, readable by any DuckDB (or Arrow, pandas, Spark) from its URL. The path carries a content hash — a table whose rows did not change between releases keeps the same object, so nothing unchanged is stored or downloaded twice. Swap in any table above; one shared with other datasets needs WHERE dataset_key = 'cdfw_dungeness-crab'. Every object of every release is listed in db-schema.
SELECT *
FROM read_parquet('https://storage.googleapis.com/calcofi-db/ducklake/tables/obs/dataset_key=cdfw_dungeness-crab/efb75142e86d561ad19f9ca4/data_0.parquet')
LIMIT 100;
db-query, in the browser
__TBL:obs__ is db-query’s name for the pinned release’s obs object — the hashed path above, resolved for you — so the same SQL keeps working when a release changes the object.
-- cdfw_dungeness-crab in the CalCOFI release v2026.09.11
SELECT *
FROM __TBL:obs__
WHERE dataset_key = 'cdfw_dungeness-crab'
LIMIT 100;
Records about the data, in the standards each portal harvests.
Where this dataset is registered outside calcofi.io: each portal’s role, what it is for, the dataset’s status there and the identifier it is known by. The policy — which portal is the archive of record and why — is in Portals.
Policy Archive of record: UC San Diego Library Digital Collections deposit (CDFW's data, sorted at SIO). EDI does not apply; OBIS planned (Darwin Core Archive of the 24 megalopae occurrences built and staged each release; the upload is CDFW's call).
Everything here is open — nothing on calcofi.io asks you to register first. If this dataset ends up in something you build or publish, register your use so it can be credited and linked back; to hear when a release changes it, stay informed. Questions: data@calcofi.io.
Cite
This dataset's own citation. What to cite, and how, is a chapter of the docs book.
Rogers-Bennett, L.; Jones, E.; Klemmedson, A. (2026). CDFW Dungeness Crab Megalopae from archived CalCOFI plankton samples (1949-2014). California Department of Fish and Wildlife, published through CalCOFI / Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
License: CC-BY-4.0
BibTeX
@misc{cdfw_dungeness-crab,
title = {CDFW Dungeness Crab Megalopae},
howpublished = {Rogers-Bennett, L.; Jones, E.; Klemmedson, A. (2026). CDFW Dungeness Crab Megalopae from archived CalCOFI plankton samples (1949-2014). California Department of Fish and Wildlife, published through CalCOFI / Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
},
year = {2026},
note = {License: CC-BY-4.0}
}
…and the release it came from
CalCOFI (2026). CalCOFI Integrated Database, release v2026.09.11 [Data set]. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA Fisheries, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. https://calcofi.io/db-schema/?v=v2026.09.11
BibTeX
@misc{calcofi_release_v2026_09_11,
title = {CalCOFI Integrated Database, release v2026.09.11},
author = {CalCOFI},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA Fisheries, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife},
url = {https://calcofi.io/db-schema/?v=v2026.09.11}
}
Source files
The original inputs the ingest notebook read, archived by the ingest to the public files bucket — 6 files, 2.6 MB.
- Cancer Magister sorting update as of 02-15-12_EJones.xlsx181 KB2026-09-04
- Dungeness Time Series - Angela Klemmedson.xlsx1.5 MB2026-09-04
- EcoQuants Mail - Fwd_ FW_ CalCOFI megalopae Identification 2012 & 2015.pdf197 KB2026-08-14
- FW Dungeness megalopae.docx17.5 KB2026-08-14
- LRogersBennett_SIOCalCOFILoan.pdf669 KB2026-08-14
- ScrippsArchivedMegalopae_sent_5_10_2012.xlsx13.6 KB2026-09-04