RECOVER MAP 3.2.3.5 and 3.2.4.5 Epifaunal Communities of Mainland Nearshore South Biscayne Bay

Biscayne Bay's benthic community is a primary source of its productivity and diversity. The benthic faunal community, consisting of small forage fish, juvenile game fish, and invertebrates such as pink shrimp, is particularly well developed in the shallow nearshore zone adjacent to the mainland and may be dependent, either directly or indirectly, upon freshwater inflow to the bay. Many small forage fish are found more abundantly in the shallow nearshore waters than in the deeper waters of the bay. The commercially important pink shrimp and blue crab also are found in western nearshore Biscayne Bay. Caridean shrimps form another important component of the epifauna. The epifaunal community is a direct food source for gray snapper, spotted seatrout, and great barracuda. It is an important link in the food web that leads to higher trophic level species such as crocodiles. This community will be the first to change when the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands projects are started. A dynamic characterization of this community and how its components vary along the shoreline is needed to provide baseline information for evaluating CERP.
In a first view of our sample data from the community perspective, we addressed determining (1) whether sites nearest to each had more similar species compositions and (2) whether species with similar salinity requirements would have similar geographic distributions. The data were investigated with cluster analyses and multidimensional scaling to gain these perspectives.