Garcia-Sais, Jorge R.; Stacey M. Williams; Jorge Sabater-Clavell; Rene Esteves; Milton Carlo

Mesophotic Benthic Habitats and Associated Reef Communities at Lang Bank, St. Croix, USVI

2014

Caribbean Fishery Management Council

NA11NMF4410064

Tech Report

"This research represents an effort towards the characterization of essential fish habitats and associated reef communities from Puerto Rico and the U. S. Virgin Islands sponsored by NMFS thru the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (CFMC). Since 1993, the CFMC has seasonally closed Lang Bank to all bottom tending gear in order to protect spawning aggregations of the red hind, Epinephelus guttatus. The main objectives of the study included the production of a georeferenced benthic habitat map of the mesophotic insular shelf and upper slope within the 30 50 m depth range, provide a quantitative and qualitative characterization of the sessile-benthic and motile-megabenthic invertebrates and fish populations of the main benthic habitat types and provide a fisheries independent survey of the most important commercially valuable fish and shellfish populations from mesophotic habitats at Lang Bank, located at the eastern tip of St. Croix, USVI."

FY2011; CRCP Project ID: 20412; Project Title: FY11 State and Territory Coral Reef Management Grants; Principal Investigator: Jenny Waddell; Grant Number: NA11NMF4410064