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Reef Fish Assemblage Biogeography Along The Florida Reef Tract, Cory Ames
Reef Fish Assemblage Biogeography Along The Florida Reef Tract, Cory Ames
HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations
Understanding the biogeography of reef fish assemblages is paramount to reef conservation, management, and conducting appropriate population survey designs. Reef fish assemblages are a multispecies complex of reef-associated fish and are shaped by multiple environmental and biological factors (e.g. temperature, depth, benthic habitat, and topographic relief), which determine the species constituents residing in an area. Assemblages typically change with latitude where the number of families, genera, and/or densities of species specific to warmer climates decrease poleward into colder climate regimes. The Florida Reef Tract (FRT) extends for 595 km from the Dry Tortugas in the south-west to Martin County in …