To adequately protect habitat for economically important fishes, the habitats used must first be identified and described. Coastal geomorphology is often overlooked as an influential parameter of fish habitat use in favor of readily available data taken at the time of sampling. We hypothesized that river dynamics (e.g., length, watershed, floodplain connectivity) and mesohabitat categories based on geomorphology (e.g., backwater, river bend) were at least as important as fine-scale microhabitat (e.g., depth, shore type) for describing the distribution and habitat affinities of Common Snook Centropomus undecimalis (hereafter referred to as snook) in coastal rivers of the Atlantic coast and Tampa Bay, Florida. Contrary to previously studied rivers where adult snook abundance increased during a seasonal prey pulse, adult snook abundance in the study rivers differed little between seasons and the rivers were used as nurseries by juveniles. Mesohabitat categories were important for describing snook distribution. For example, the smallest snook (≤ 250 mm total length, TL) strongly selected for backwater habitats while the largest (≥ 851 mm TL) selected river bends. Detailed microhabitat data collected at individual capture locations were helpful in describing the habitat associations of the smallest size group of snook (shallow depths and aquatic macrophytes with various shore types) and for characterizing river bends (high flow, deep water, and lower salinities) but were not strongly associated with other snook sizes or mesohabitat categories. Thus, broader scale habitat features were found to be equally as important as detailed microhabitat and should be considered when informing conservation efforts.

为了充分保护重要经济鱼类的栖息地，必须首先确定和描述所使用的栖息地。沿海地貌通常被视为鱼类栖息地使用的影响参数，而取之于取样时容易获得的数据。我们假设河流动力学（例如，长度，分水岭，洪泛区连通性）和基于地貌的中生境类别（例如，回水，河道）至少与精细尺度的微生境（例如，深度，海岸类型）同等重要。常见斯努克的分布和栖息地的亲和力Centropomus undecimalis大西洋沿岸和佛罗里达州坦帕湾的沿海河流（以下简称“斯诺克”）。与以前研究过的河水（季节性捕食脉冲期间成年的斯诺克丰度增加）相反，研究河中的成年斯诺克丰度在不同季节之间相差不大，并且这些河被少年用作育苗场。中生境类别对于描述斯努克分布很重要。例如，强烈选择用于回水栖息地的最小的斯诺克（总长度≤250 mm，TL），而选择的最大的斯诺克（≥851 mm TL）则弯曲。在各个捕获地点收集的详细微生境数据有助于描述最小尺寸的斯诺克族（浅深度和各种岸上类型的水生植物）的栖息地关联，并有助于表征弯河（高流量，深水，和较低的盐度），但与其他斯努克尺寸或中栖动物类别没有明显关系。因此，发现更广泛的生境特征与详细的微生境同样重要，在告知保护工作时应予以考虑。