GULF OF MEXICO 



213 



(fig. 51), the fauna of which is predominantly 

 tropical in character. 



The communities which support penaeid shrimp 

 appear to have no counterpart in European waters, 

 but similar communities evidently occur in waters 

 of southeastern Asia and along the western coast 

 of Central America. It is worthy of note that the 

 commercial fishery of shrimp is one of the few 

 major fisheries drawing upon an annual (or perhaps 

 bieimial) production and is thus more dependent 

 on the short term production of bottom fauna 

 and short-term secular changes in the environment 

 than are the fisheries which exploit organisms that 

 have required several years to reach marketable 

 size. 



THE CORAL AND SPONGE COMMUNITIES 



These are tropical, stenohaline communities, 

 rich in number of species and difficult to charac- 

 terize except in terms of their dominant members. 

 The reef-building coral is a true community dom- 

 inant, shaping the community and altermg the 

 environment. The small reefs or patches along 

 the Texas and Louisiana coast are peculiar north- 

 ern fragments of the West Indian reefs. Their 

 position is governed primarily by the occurrence 

 of small elevations along the edge of the con- 

 tinental shelf which rise to within 10 to 25 fathoms 

 of the surface rather than by temperature or 

 sedimentation conditions. These elevations may 

 indicate dome structures. It can be inferred from 

 the presence of these living reefs that the mean 

 temperatures do not fall below 20° C. along the 

 summits of these structures. There are rare rec- 

 ords of tropical reef animals, especially decapod 

 Crustacea, along the Texas coast indicating that 

 these reefs have the usual West Indian tropical 

 fauna and that a certain amount of straying, 

 especially during the summer months, occurs. 

 More information concerning the sponge and 

 coral communities of western Florida will be 

 found in other parts of this volume. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Allee, W. C, et al. 



1949. Principles of animal ecology. 837 pp., 263 figs. 

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 Andree, K. 



1920. Geologie des Meeresbodens. Vol. 2, Bodens- 

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 boden. Pp. xx, 689. Leipzig. 



Archer, Allan F. 



1947. A scientific study of effects of 1947 hurricane on 

 oyster reefs in Alabama. Alabama Conserv. 19 (6): 

 7, 12, 2 figs. 

 1948a. Alabama's oyster reefs. Alabama Conserv. 19 



(11): 8-9, 2 figs. 

 1948b. June oyster reef survey. Alabama Conserv. 

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 Bartholomew, J. G.; Clarke, W. Eagle, and Grimshaw, 

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 Behre, Ellinor H. 



1950. Annotated list of the fauna of the Grand Isle 

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Brotskaja, V. A., and Zenkevich, L. A. 



1939. Quantitative evaluation of the bottom fauna of 

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 Cart, L. R. 



1906. The conditions for oyster culture in the waters of 

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1951. Biozonotische Untersuchungen tiber die Strandar- 

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 garische Kiistentierwelt 3). Hydrobiologica 3 (2): 

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Chambost, L. 



1928. Essai sur la region littorale dans les environs de 

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 Clements, F. E., and Shelford, V. E. 



1939. Bio-ecology, vii, 425 pp., 85 figs. New York: 

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 Ekman, Sven. 



1935. Tiergeographie des Meeres. Leipsig : Akad. 

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1931. Survey of oyster bottoms in Texas. Bur. Fisheries 

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1936. Studies of the destruction of marine fish by 

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1938a. The relative numbers of species of marine fish 

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1938b. Seasonal variations in abundance of certain 

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 313-346. 



1945. Studies on marine fishes of Texas. Pub. Inst. 

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