The inshore environment of Broward County, Florida consists of three coral reef/hard bottom reef tracts, separated by sand substrate, running parallel to the coast in sequentially deeper water. My study was an extensive inventory of the fishes associated with these reef tracts. At quarter nautical mile intervals, for an eighteen nautical-mile coastline section, fishes were censused at western, eastern edges and crests of each of the three reef tracts. On SCUBA, using the Bohnsack-Bannerot point count method, fish abundance, species richness, sizes (TL), and general habitat characteristics were recorded within an imaginary cylinder 15m in diameter extending to the surface. The position of each count site location was recorded by DOPS after each census. During a 4-year period, August 1998 to November 2002, 667 count sites were censused. A total of 86,463 fish belonging to 211 species (S2 families) were recorded. Significant differences (p Juvenile grunts, an important forage base, were significantly higher on the inshore and middle reefs, which did not differ significantly from each other, than the offshore reef. Of immediate management interest, my findings include a surprising scarcity of legal size groupers (2) and snappers (198) over the entire survey area.
| Date of Award | Jan 1 2003 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Richard E. Spieler (Supervisor), Robin Sherman (Advisor) & James Bohnsack (Advisor) |
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