Fishes associated with mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) of the La Parguera shelf-edge were surveyed between 2007 and 2011 using mixed-gas rebreather diving. Fishes were identified and counted within belt transects and roving surveys at 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 ...

Environmental clines such as latitude and depth that limit species’ distributions may be associated with gradients in habitat suitability that can affect the fitness of an organism. With the global loss of shallow-water photosynthetic coral reefs, mesophotic coral ecosystems (~30–150 ...

Reef-building corals inhabiting the mesophotic zone (30-150 m) not only survive but thrive in light-limiting environments. Similar to shallow corals, mesophotic corals also exhibit coral fluorescence. Because fluorescent proteins (FPs) absorb high-energy light and emit lower-energy light, FPs could play ...

Mesophotic coral ecosystems are an almost entirely unexplored and undocumented environment that likely contains vast reservoirs of undescribed biodiversity. Twenty-four macroalgae samples, representing four genera, were collected from a Hawaiian mesophotic reef at water depths between 65 and 86 m ...

The Gap Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Data project is a review of available geospatial data which can assist in marine natural resource management for eight park units. The project includes the collection of geospatial information and its incorporation in a ...

Mesophotic corals (light-dependent corals in the deepest half of the photic zone at depths of 30 - 150 m) provide a unique opportunity to study the limits of the interactions between corals and endosymbiotic dinoflagellates in the genus Symbiodinium. We ...

Understanding the connectivity of reef organisms is important to assist in the conservation of biological diversity and to facilitate sustainable fisheries in these ecosystems. Common methods to assess reef connectivity include both population genetics and biophysical modelling. Individually, these techniques ...

Resolving the genetic connectivity of coral reef taxa is necessary to understand the community dynamics of these increasingly threatened ecosystems. Herein, we assess the fine scale genetic connectivity of six populations of the Atlantic giant barrel sponge, Xestospongia muta (Schmidt, ...

Despite the devastating impact of the lionfish (Pterois volitans) invasion on NW Atlantic ecosystems, little genetic information about the invasion process is available. We applied Genotyping by Sequencing techniques to identify 1,220 single nucleotide polymorphic sites (SNPs) from 162 lionfish ...

The Benthic Organisms of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary geodatabase is a collection of information on the distribution of benthic organisms within the sanctuary compiled from multiple sources. It contains information on the distribution of benthic habitats from the ...