Capstone Spotlight

The Challenge

Stony corals are foundational species that support reef ecosystems, fisheries, and coastal protection, but many Gulf of Mexico coral habitats remain undocumented. The West Florida Shelf is especially underrepresented in coral mapping and genetic conservation initiatives, including Mote Marine Laboratory’s International Coral Gene Bank (ICGB).

Limited high-resolution bathymetric data, patchy hard-bottom morphology, and uneven biological surveys have left major gaps in our understanding of where coral habitat exists. Without accurate habitat maps, conservation and restoration efforts risk overlooking resilient coral populations and potential climate refugia critical for long-term reef recovery.

Research Methods

Geospatial Data Integration
Compiled NOAA ENC bathymetry, USGS coastal geology, side-scan sonar mosaics, artificial reef databases, known ledge polygons, fisher-reported ledges, and verified coral occurrence records into a unified GIS framework.

Terrain and Habitat Modeling
Derived key environmental predictors, slope and rugosity, from bathymetric data to identify hard-bottom features and limestone ledges associated with coral settlement and persistence.

Depth-Stratified Analysis
Analyzed habitats within the 0-40 m SCUBA-accessible depth range and subdivided results into three depth bands (0-10 m, 10-20 m, 20-40 m) to support safe, practical field validation and dive planning.

Hotspot & Suitability Mapping
Used weighted overlay analysis to generate a Habitat Suitability Index (HSI), then identified potential coral hotspots and cross-validated them using kernel density analysis and independent datasets.

Interactive Web Map Development
Created an interactive QGIS web map allowing researchers and restoration practitioners to visualize, filter, and export habitat data by depth, region, and suitability.

Key Findings

Coral records are heavily clustered in historically surveyed regions, while large data gaps persist in the Big Bend and Panhandle areas of the West Florida Shelf.

• Bathymetry, slope, and substrate complexity are strong predictors of coral habitat potential, with sharp differences among shelf ecoregions.
• Habitat-suitability modeling identified the central and southern WFS, and notably the Big Bend region, as promising areas for previously undocumented coral habitat.
• Incorporating fisher-reported ledges significantly improved model accuracy, demonstrating the value of local ecological knowledge in marine habitat mapping.
• The resulting interactive GIS map represents the first region-scale visualization of potential stony coral habitat across the eastern Gulf of Mexico at SCUBA-accessible depths, providing a practical decision-support tool for research, restoration, and genetic conservation planning.