Faunal zonation of large epibenthic invertebrates off North Carolina revisited

The dominant populations of large epibenthic megafauna off North Carolina were mapped in the 1960s from the upper continental slope out to the Hatteras Abyssal Plain using multi-shot sea-floor photography. The present re-analysis of the original data using contemporary computer-based methods and geo-referenced mapping (GIS) reveal that the overall patterns inferred initially can be substantiated. Individual species occurred in narrow depth bands that hugged the topography along the entire sampling area, but multi-species assemblages emerge with the modern, more formal quantitative methods.