Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Fish Communities Associated With Cold-Water Corals Vary With Depth And Substratum Type, Rosanna Milligan, Gemma Spence, J. Murray Roberts, David M. Bailey

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Understanding the processes that drive the distribution patterns of organisms and the scales over which these processes operate are vital when considering the effective management of species with high commercial or conservation value. In the deep sea, the importance of scleractinian cold-water corals (CWCs) to fish has been the focus of several studies but their role remains unclear. We propose this may be due to the confounding effects of multiple drivers operating over multiple spatial scales. The aims of this study were to investigate the role of CWCs in shaping fish community structure and individual species-habitat associations across four spatial …