Abstract
Will the Florida Big Bend Area Become the Next Gulf of Mexico Reef Tract?
Highlights
Today, the best-developed coral reefs in the continental United States occur in the Florida Reef tract along some 580 km from the Dry Tortugas to the southeast coast of Florida between 24◦ and 26◦ N (Figure 1A; Morey et al, 2017; Cummings et al, 2018)
Temperature minimums are becoming less severe along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) as reflected by the expansion of black mangroves into salt marsh habitats of the northern Gulf (Osland et al, 2013)
We make this assertion for a number of reasons: (1) abundant substrate is available in the form of the largest carbonate platform in the region (Morey et al, 2017), (2) low-relief outcroppings are abundant in the 10–20 m isobath (Phillips et al, 1990) where light and temperature will likely be conducive for reef accretion, (3) areas of the West Florida Shelf (WFS) influenced by the warm Loop Current waters currently support hermatypic reefs, and (4) extant reef systems offer a supply of potential recruits
Summary
The best-developed coral reefs in the continental United States occur in the Florida Reef tract along some 580 km from the Dry Tortugas to the southeast coast of Florida between 24◦ and 26◦ N (Figure 1A; Morey et al, 2017; Cummings et al, 2018) These long-lived communities encrust and have built upon earlier structures deposited during the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs (Shinn and Lidz, 2018). These west coast Florida ecosystems occur where they do because of warm-water delivery by the Loop Current, which brings oligotrophic water from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) (Cummings et al, 2018) Outside of this influence, actively accreting reef communities give way to more sparsely populated live bottom, characterized by cold-tolerant scleractinian and soft corals, sponges, hydrozoans, barnacles, seagrasses, and macroalgae (Jaap, 2015; Morey et al, 2017). The subtropical latitude and frequency of winter cold fronts appear to be keeping winter minimum temperatures below the 18◦C threshold critical to coral
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
