Seagrass, oyster reef, and mangrove shorelines provide essential habitat for many coastal marine fishes. In coastal estuaries the abundance and distribution of lower and higher trophic level fishes are influenced by a combination of myriad interacting factors, including abiotic and biotic habitat characteristics and prey availability. To advance our understanding, and identify and quantify the relative importance of these hidden drivers of fish community dynamics, here I develop a Bayesian habitat mosaic modeling approach that considers nested patterns of benthic habitat and environmental characteristics embedded within broader seascapes. While the use of habitat mosaics has been useful in predicting species abundance, only recently have these models been used to understand fish community structure and dynamics. By binning data over various spatial and temporal scales, this Bayesian framework provides greater insight into the relative importance of multiple interacting factors, such as benthic habitat type, availability, and prey abundance on the distribution and abundance of higher trophic level fishes. This novel framework and results can be broadly applied to describe the influence of benthic habitat type and prey availability on predatory fish abundance, and creates a tool for understanding mobile fish foraging within a shifting habitat mosaic in coastal ecosystems.
Dr. Geoffrey Cook, University of Central Florida
