Molluscan faunas of the coral reef tract macrohabitat and gastropod reef macrohabitat (nearshore marine regime)

Introduction The Coral Reef Tract of the Florida Keys, which extends from Soldier Key to the Dry Tortugas, is composed of an immense complex of linear reef platforms that is equivalent, structurally and biologically, only to the Great Barrier Reef of Belize and the linear reef tracts of the Bahama Banks. Throughout the Florida Keys, these shallow-water (1-to 20-m depths) coral aggregations are geographically constrained, existing only in a narrow, curving band lying between the sand-filled Hawk Channel and the depths of the Florida Straits. This unique biogenic geomorphological feature, the largest coral reef system in the continental United States, also houses one of the largest coral-associated malacofaunas in the entire tropical western Atlantic. To date, over 200 species of macrogastropods and macrobivalves are known from the Keys reef complexes.