Stetson Bank Long-Term Monitoring: 2023 Annual Report

This document describes the methods used, field data analyses performed, significant observations made, and challenges encountered during annual long-term monitoring of fish, benthic communities, and water quality at Stetson Bank in 2023. This bank is located 130 km southeast of Galveston, Texas within Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. It features a productive benthic community and dense fish assemblage. The bank crest has been monitored annually since 1993, and surveys of the mesophotic zone surrounding the bank crest began in 2015.

Monitoring activities completed in 2023 included water quality sampling, bank crest repetitive photostations and fish surveys, and random bank crest photo transects and fish surveys. However, field work and data collection were limited in 2023 due to challenges resulting from inclement weather and vessel maintenance.

Despite these limitations, 54 bank crest repetitive photostations were captured in 2023. Coral, hydrocoral, sponges, and macroalgae had mean percent cover of 4.90%, 2.77%, 12.28%, and 48.12%, respectively.

Key Words

benthic community, fish community, Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, long- term monitoring, Stetson Bank, water quality