Abstract
Data from 34 epibenthic trawls were made on the continental shelf of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico between depths 13 and 400 meters. These took 6,468 individuals belonging to 251 species of demersal fishes and invertebrates, with a mean number of 287 individuals per hectare. The average biomass for all the assemblages was 294 mg/m2 (0.294 g/m2), and the average diversity (H') was 2.0. Hypoxic conditions were not found during the investigation. There was no correlation found between the number of species and depth. Biomass and diversity were not statistically significant between nearshore and offshore. A relatively high number of species were collected from the northwestern Gulf of Mexico compared with the northeastern Gulf; in addition, northwestern Gulf diversity lies between stable tropical shelves and those in temperate latitudes. Evaluation of the percentage similarity indices between stations showed low similarity among the assemblages.
Al-Jabr, Abdulrahman Mohammad (1995). Epibenthic invertebrates and fishes of the continental shelf of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1995 -THESIS -A55.