Refinement of the Southern Florida Reef Tract Benthic Habitat Map With Habitat Use Patterns of Reef Fish Species

The benthic habitat map for the southern Florida coral reef ecosystem provides the critical infrastructure for: (i) large-scale baseline ecosystem monitoring surveys of fishes, corals, and macroinvertebrates and their habitats; (ii) ecological understanding of animal use of habitats and evaluation of the efficacy of spatial fishery management strategies (e.g., no-take marine reserves); and (iii) habitat-based fish abundance at length data for the entire reeffish community (exploited and non-targeted) with high spatial resolution for use in multi-species stock assessment models. Habitats are currently classified according to a qualitative, descriptive scheme e.g., patch reefs, reef pavement, reef rubble, etc. at a minimum resolution of 100 x 100 m map units (i.e., grid cells). At this scale, monitoring costs increase and usability is limited because the ability to discriminate among highly productive habitats is reduced. Recently, high resolution remote-sensed mapping products for bathymetry have become available for the southern Florida coral reef tract. Concurrently, analytical methods utilizing these mapping products have been developed to derive quantitative metrics of benthic characteristics, e.g., reef complexity, etc., which enable more refined classification of reef habitats

To develop a refined benthic habitat map for the southern Florida reef tract based on quantitative habitat metrics at a spatial scale of 50 x 50 m map units