The importance of habitat features in low-relief continental shelf environments

Benthic habitats can be loosely divided into low and high relief based upon gross bottom topography. While fish community studies in high relief environments such as coral reefs have been extensively studied using in situ visual analysis, most studies of low relief environments have utilized trawl-based methodologies. Such studies while valuable, are unable to detect small-scale variations in habitat availability and faunal responses to that variation. This paper presents the availability of other techniques, ranging from visual surveys to sonar and bathymetric analysis, which allow researchers to address questions of habitat utilization in low relief environments.