Florida Reef Tract Ecosystem Model Scenarios for Marine Planning

Florida Reef Tract outputs from an Ecopath with Ecosim and Ecospace model. The dataset contains predicted fish biomass for 36 trophic groups across eight management scenarios, simulating conditions from 1994 to 2012. It was produced by NOAA as part of the RESTORE Science Program to support Gulf of Mexico resource management.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the impact of Marine Protected Area size ('existing MPAs', 'large MPAs') on predicted fish biomass.
• Evaluating how modeled organism movement ('low diffusion', 'high diffusion') affects trophic group outcomes.
• Simulating the effects of changing fishing pressure ('low TEM', 'high TEM') across 36 trophic groups.
• Comparing spatio-temporal biomass predictions across eight combined management scenarios from 1994-2012.
• Supporting recommendations for improving Gulf of Mexico oceanographic observation networks for ecosystem management.

Strengths

• Model outputs cover a 19-year time series from 1994 to 2012.
• Scenarios are structured from all pairwise combinations of three key management variables.
• Includes predictions for 36 distinct trophic groups, allowing detailed ecosystem analysis.
• Dataset presence on multiple federal platforms signals its established use in management science.

Limitations

• Core column names and exact row counts are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on last update date, listing both 2016-12-01 and a future date of 2026-03-13.
• Primary data format is listed as PDF, which may limit computational analysis without preprocessing.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Outputs from Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) and Ecospace ecosystem modeling framework.

Time Range

1994 to 2012

Freshness

2026-03-13 20:39:50.473931

Geography

Florida Reef Tract, Gulf of Mexico, Florida Keys