Avery Fessler

Artificial reefs are valuable tools used to supplement existing natural reefs or create new habitats for fish and invertebrates. These sites are often used recreationally for fishing and diving. Artificial reefs typically support several structures of fish communities, but it is still not fully understood what these fish communities look like across different reef materials. Studying what fish communities look like across different reef materials is helpful in guiding management practices. Our work assessed fish school size and density across rock, metal, concrete, and vessel reef sites. We collected echosounder data on twelve different reef sites of varying artificial materials during 2020 and 2021. We used this data to ask how the structure of the fish community on a reef changes based on the material type of the reef. We looked at what the total area of schooling fish was, the density of the schools, and found a trend of larger and more dense schools of vessel based reefs. Using this information, future studies can better gauge what types of species will be present on certain reefs, and management practices around reef sites can be catered more specifically towards the fish community present.