Long-Term Monitoring of Coral Reef Fish Fort Jefferson National Monument

Tilmant, James; Kimmel, Joseph

Report of fish census (part of an ongoing monitoring project). Found 6594 fish (111 species). Compares results to first-year results. Attachments include a master list of species, a list of species with numbers recorded for each of 5 locations and some graphs showing species diversity, and abundance. Author Introduction: The monitoring of reef fish populations has been identified as an element of the overall long term coral reef studies needed to document the health and condition of National Park Service coral reef resources throughout the Caribbean The monitoring of reef fish populations at Fort Jefferson h s been coupled with the studies being conducted under contract with the Florida Department of Natural Resources. The specific objective of the reef fish work has been to obtain a representative quantitative index as to the species present and their abundance at selected study sites. This objective include obtaining data that is repeatable and directly comparable to subsequent sampling periods at those same locations. CY 1989 represents the first year of data collection on this project. Results of our observations are presented in this report and some comparisons to the limited previous work available.