The Phase I Ecological Characterization component comprised three major elements: 1) characterization of the infauna, ie what lives below the seafloor surface, in the sediments; 2) characterization of the epifauna, ie what lives on top of the seafloor sediments or attached to the harder substrates; and 3) development of a habitat map that integrates both infaunal and epifaunal data along with several other abiotic factors that comprise the seafloor environment. For the Phase I effort teams from the Long Island Sound Mapping and Research Collaborative (LISMaRC) and the Stony Brook University conducted separate, but complementary ecological studies.  Descriptions of these efforts are found in the sub-menus.

The Ecological Characterizations utilized both the Sampling and Imaging technologies described in the How We Map page: https://lismap.uconn.edu/how-we-map-long-island-sound/