Author Type

Faculty

Document Type

Report

Abstract

A 17-day research cruise was conducted to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS), August 12-29, 2019 by the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology (CIOERT) at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University (HBOI-FAU) aboard the University of Miami ship R/V F.G. Walton Smith. Two legs of the expedition were conducted. Leg 1 (August 13-20, 2019) consisted of Mohawk remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives with the primary objective to document and characterize the benthic habitats, benthic communities, and fish assemblages of the mesophotic (30-100 m) coral ecosystems and deep rariphotic (>100 m) zones within and adjacent to the protected areas within the jurisdiction of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) (Figs. 1-3, Table 1). Additional dives that are not included herein were made on some shallow reefs (< 30 m) within the Tortugas Ecological Reserve (TER) and also in Pulley Ridge HAPC in the Gulf of Mexico. Leg 2 consisted of technical scuba dives conducted within the FKNMS and TER to collect corals and sponges for population genetics studies and are not included in this report. The first report related to these coral connectivity assessments can be found in Sturm et al. 2021.

Publication Date

2021

Comments

Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution Technical Report Number 198.

Download

Share

COinS