2024 Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Long-Term Monitoring of the Coral Reef Caps of East Flower Garden Bank and West Flower Garden Bank (NCEI Accession 0308032)

This dataset contains raw and processed data from an annual long-term monitoring program documenting fish and benthic community observations, along with water quality measurements, at East Flower Garden Bank (EFGB) and West Flower Garden Bank (WFGB). These two sites are part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS), located in the northwestern Gulf of America. Monitoring began in 1989 and is funded by FGBNMS and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, with support from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. EFGB and WFGB are coral reef-capped features that form part of a discontinuous arc of reef environments along the outer continental shelf. They rise from salt dome formations located approximately 190 km south of the Texas-Louisiana border and include habitats ranging from 16 to 166 meters in depth. The shallow bank caps lie within the photic zone and support diverse coral, algal, invertebrate, and fish communities, many of which are shared with Caribbean reef systems. Benthic community data are derived from benthic photo analysis using Coral Point Count with Excel extensions (CPCe). Fish surveys are conducted annually using a modified Bohnsack and Bannerot stationary point count method, and results are recorded in Excel spreadsheets. Water quality parameters (e.g., temperature, salinity, turbidity, nutrients) are obtained from moored conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instruments, water samples, and quarterly profiling of the water column. Temperature and salinity records are reduced to daily averages for long-term trend analysis.