Does the Per Unit Area Habitat Value of Rocky Reef Change with Patch Size and Isolation?

Understanding the spatial components defining habitat size and the degree to which isolation affects species richness and abundance is critical for the sustainability of marine fishes and long term fisheries management. What is the per unit area habitat value among differentiated rocky reefs and what  models can be built to predict this? What affect does topographic complexity within a neighborhood have on species richness and/or abundance?  

These questions will be assessed at rocky reef patches with varying degrees of isolation and size off Big Sur on the central California coast. The assessment will be performed using a RESON 7125 multi-beam bathymetry sonar and video capture with a Seabotix LBV remotely operated underwater vehicle mounted on the RV Harold Heath in addition to California Seafloor Mapping Project data at the CSUMB Seafloor Mapping Lab. Existing multi-beam data was used to identify study sites within the larger Big Sur region and classify sites by degree of isolation, size, depth and topography.  For the study and predictive models, collected data will be randomly sampled for assessment and development of models. Sites not reviewed prior to model development will be assessed using the predictive model.