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Shallow-Water Coral Communities Support The Separation Of Marine Ecoregions On The West-Central Florida Gulf Coast, Brian K. Walker, Shelby Eagan, Cory Ames, Sandra Brooke, Sean Keenan, Rene Baumstark

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Florida’s west coast is a 170,000 km² bedrock shelf (west Florida shelf, WFS) comprised of north-south discontinuous carbonate outcroppings extending more than 200 km from the intertidal zone to a depth of 200 m. These outcrops support diverse benthic communities, which contribute to a multi-billion dollar recreational and commercial fishing industry, yet only about 5% of their extent has been studied in detail. Benthic communities shift over a 6.5° geographic range, but the locations of these shifts are not well-defined. Previous studies have suggested a break in biogeographic regions at Tampa Bay, south at Cape Romano, and north at …