Fig 1.
Boxplot of mean species richness (± standard error) across depth stations.
The deep stations had higher species richness than the shallow stations. Figure includes only the nearshore samples and does not include the surf zone samples. The colors represent relative depths of the stations: Yellow is shallow (0 m and 1 m), green is mid-water (5 m), and purple is deep (9 m and 10 m).
Fig 2.
NMDS of species assemblages across depth (m) using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity.
Differences in community composition increased with greater distance between depth stations (stress = 0.178). 0 m represents the surface and 10 m represents the sea floor.
Fig 3.
eDNA Index abundance depth distributions for the top predictor taxa.
eDNA Index mean and standard error (+/- 1SE) for taxa with greater than 0.35 R2 importance in the gradient forest model. See S1 and S2 Appendices for assigning. Family Embiotocidae and Genus Gibbonsia.
Fig 4.
The top predictor taxa eDNA index abundance nearshore and surf zone distributions.
eDNA Index mean and standard error (+/- 1SE) for the taxa with greater than 0.40 R2 importance in nearshore vs. surf zone gradient forest model. See S1 and S2 Appendices for assigning Family Embiotocidae.