ancillary information is not complete enough at this point 

 to elucidate them. 



Corals, both alcyonarians and scleractinians were seen 

 throughout the survey. Coral populations tended to be denser 

 and more diverse in canyon habitats. Some species, such as those 

 restricted to hard substrates were found only in canyons while 

 others, namely soft substrate types were found both in the 

 canyons and on the slope. Discrete assemblages of corals 

 were not identified. Here again, their distributions tended 

 to be independent, such that the coral species were not uni- 

 formly associated throughout the study area. This finding 

 indicates that the corals are cueing in to slightly different 

 environmental parameters. However, our lack of ancillary 

 information concerning the fine scale environmental variability 

 within the study area makes it impossible to identify these 

 factors . 



Measures of species overlap yielded ambiguous results. 

 Patchy distribution and substrate variability tended to obscure 

 meaningful faunal comparisons. In general, the mid-slope depths 

 indicated high faunal similarities between 50 meter depth 

 intervals. This was also true of the deep slope fauna. The 

 shelf and canyon walls yielded slightly different results. 

 Faunal homogeneity on the shelf tended to be uniformly low 

 between depth intervals. Species similarity in the canyons 

 was extremely variable. This again points to the fact that the 

 environmental heterogeneity of canyons provide unique habitats 

 for their faunal constituents. 



11 



