BIODIVERSITY

The northeastern Gulf of Mexico marine ecosystem is woefully understudied. yet, it is among the most biologically diverse and productive systems in the United States, both inshore and offshore. Given the potential for human-induced threats to this ecosystem from fishing impacts, oil and gas exploration and development, and water rediversion projects, the need is acute to identify and classify the area into spatially and temporally specific regions.

Offshore, along the edge of the West Florida continental shelf, exists a broad band of drowned reefs or fossil reefs at water depths ranging from 50 m to over 120 m. These paleo reefs are important ecologically as areas of high biological diversity and economically as critical fishing grounds, supporting commercial and recreational fisheries valued in the billions of dollars. These habitats have been fished for over 100 years, suggesting that the benthic communities and habitat features have suffered from both direct and indirect or incidental impacts. For that reason, researchers at the FSUCML have spent a considerable amount of time getting baseline information about these sites as well as deep-water coral reef sites on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and have been instrumental in getting them designated as marine protected areas.

Inshore, the northwest coast of Florida, from St. Joseph Bay to the Apalachicola River Ecosystem and west throughout the Big Bend, is an enormously rich and biologically diverse region. Researchers at the FSU Coastal & Marine Laboratory have embarked on a program to compare the historical (mid-20th century) and current distribution and abundance of marine organisms within this area in cooperation with the Alligator Harbor Aquatic Preserve, the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, and graduate students in the FSU Department of Geography.