Sampling is carried out bi-monthly on the R/V Walton Smith (University of Miami) as part of the South Florida Program (NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory/ AOML) and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON). Samples are collected at three stations: Molasses Reef (25.051638 N, 280.22858 W), Looe Key (24.323028 N, 281.248068 W), and Western Sambo (24.286048 N, 281.428898 W). At each station, horizontal hauls (surface water) are performed with 64, 200, and 500 mm mesh size Bongo plankton nets. Each net tow is carried out for 5 min at 1 knot. The three size classes are split using a Folsom plankton splitter and preserved with 15 % formalin for morphological analysis. Morphological identification...
