Distribution and Abundance Patterns of Several Reef Fish Species Among Different Hard Bottom Habitats in the North East Gulf of Mexico

Cross-shelf mapping and video surveys conducted on the northern West Florida shelf in the NE Gulf of Mexico revealed that hard/live bottom habitat is widespread, and it varies widely in relief, rugosity, morphology, density, area, and in density and composition of attached biota. The community structure, densities, and demographics of reef fishes often vary among these different forms of hard bottom. Stratifying sampling (or post-stratifying in analyses) by these habitat types would obviously improve efficiency, optimize survey resources, and yield more accurate abundance estimators in a reef fish survey.  Findings from an ongoing trap and video fishery-independent survey demonstrating these habitat-related differences for several exploited reef fishes will be presented.