Resident Benthic Fishes of Artificial Reefs in the Mississippi Sound: Effects of Habitat Relief and Subregion

<p>One of the fundamental questions of artificial reef research concerns the capability of these manmade structures to promote secondary production. Many researchers have questioned whether artificial reefs increase the production of fish biomass, or simply aggregate existing fish biomass. Most previous research has focused on production of transient fish biomass, because of the high recreational and commercial value of these species. Establishing a link between transient fish production and artificial reef primary and secondary production has proved difficult. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the productivity of benthic fishes resident to artificial reefs in the Mississippi Sound, and to link this productivity to the artificial reef community through trophic relationships. This study examined differences in condition of benthic fishes resident to four artificial reefs of two profile types distributed across the Mississippi Sound. Poorer condition was found in several benthic fish species on concrete high profile reefs relative to low profile oyster shell reefs. Subregion also appeared to effect poorer condition in the eastern subregion. Diet volume was low in <em>Gobiesox strumosus </em>from high profile reefs, and contents differed across both reef types and subregions. Differences in diet contents may have been related to prey taxa tolerance of abiotic conditions and substrate type preferences. These results suggest reef material, design and abiotic conditions relating to specific reef location may affect availability or accessibility to specific prey taxa for resident fishes, and that this may in turn strongly affect production of biomass in resident fishes. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Coastal Sciences, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Matten, Claire Louise

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chet Rakocinski
• Mark S. Peterson
• Richard Fulford

• artificial reef
• benthic fishes
• Gobiesox strumosus
• refuge scaling
• Life Sciences
• Marine Biology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/29

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1018