A Survey of the Deep Bank Marine Macroalgae and Macrocrustaceans in the Gulf of Mexico

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The Gulf of Mexico constitutes one of the world's most unique and productive ocean basins, characterized by a relatively shallow but well-developed continental shelf with an extensive system of offshore hard banks which are among the least sampled habitats in US waters. These unique hard banks, in most cases located in or adjacent to areas of intensive oil and gas production and transportation or in some cases near expanding areas of anthropogenic eutrophication, harbor diverse benthic assemblages including large numbers of undescribed species. The goal of this project, to be conducted by Drs. Fredericq and Felder at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in conjunction with a network of US and Mexican collaborators, is an intensive three year program to sample macroalgae and macrocrustaceans from 45-90 m depths on deep banks in the NE Gulf (vicinity of the Florida Middle Ground), SE Gulf (vicinity of the Dry Tortugas) and SW Gulf (off Yucatan, Mexico). Data from this project will be combined with information from available NW Gulf collections to establish comprehensive biodiversity inventories as well as descriptions of anticipated numerous new species, while increasing knowledge of endemism and distribution ranges of these dominant biotic assemblages. All seaweeds, as well as crabs, shrimp, lobsters, mantis shrimp, and related crustaceans will be identified using morphological and molecular evidence. The project produces a specimen database from new and existing collections that will be web-accessible and will include taxonomic, accession and life history data along with illustrations, photographs, checklists, new species descriptions, identification keys to problematic groups, sources of available DNA extracts and references to relevant DNA sequences. In the absence of documented diversity, and because most hard banks are afforded little attention in conservation and management plans that might otherwise protect them from negative impacts of oil and gas production or impacts from adjacent areas of regional anthropogenic eutrophication, the project provides resources essential to future research and educational training of students in taxonomy, phylogenetics, population genetics, ecology and conservation of the dominant groups in the Gulf of Mexico.