Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 May 6:2:168.
doi: 10.1038/s42003-019-0398-2. eCollection 2019.

Artificial reefs facilitate tropical fish at their range edge

Avery B Paxton  1   2   3 , Charles H Peterson  1   2 , J Christopher Taylor  4 , Alyssa M Adler  1 , Emily A Pickering  1 , Brian R Silliman  5
Affiliations

Artificial reefs facilitate tropical fish at their range edge

Avery B Paxton et al. Commun Biol. .

Abstract

Spatial planning increasingly incorporates theoretical predictions that artificial habitats assist species movement at or beyond range edges, yet evidence for this is uncommon. We conducted surveys of highly mobile fauna (fishes) on artificial habitats (reefs) on the southeastern USA continental shelf to test whether, in comparison to natural reefs, artificial reefs enhance local abundance and biomass of fishes at their poleward range margins. Here, we show that while temperate fishes were more abundant on natural reefs, tropical, and subtropical fishes exhibited higher abundances and biomasses on deep (25-35 m) artificial reefs. Further analyses reveal that this effect depended on feeding guilds because planktivorous and piscivorous but not herbivorous fishes were more abundant on artificial reefs. This is potentially due to heightened prey availability on and structural complexity of artificial reefs. Our findings demonstrate that artificial habitats can facilitate highly mobile species at range edges and suggest these habitats assist poleward species movement.

Keywords: Community ecology; Urban ecology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a Artificial reefs established along the eastern USA. Black square indicates location of (b) 30 warm-temperate reefs surveyed on the inner continental shelf. Gray lines indicate bathymetric contours, beginning with 10 m deep closest to shore. Scale divisions are (a) every 250 km and (b) every 25 km. Data in panel a are from MarineCadastre.gov (BOEM and NOAA. MarineCadastre.gov. Artificial Reefs. Accessed 2018 from marinecadastre.gov/data)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Abundance (±1 SE) of fishes (per 120 m2) on artificial reefs versus natural reefs by fish climate range: (a) tropical, (b) subtropical, (c) temperate. Reef depth zones are: shallow: 5–18 m, intermediate: 18–25 m, deep: 25–35 m. Shaded areas of the violin plots are proportional to the number of observations. Points represent mean observed abundance (±1 SE). GLM results appear in Supplementary Table 3
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Species richness (per 120 m2) of fishes on deep (18–25 m) artificial reefs versus natural reefs for (a) tropical, (b) subtropical, and (c) temperate climate ranges. Shaded areas of the violin plots are proportional to the number of observations. Points represent mean observed species richness (±1 SE)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Abundance (per 120 m2) of fish trophic groups on deep (18–25 m) artificial reefs versus natural reefs. (a) All climate ranges (tropical, subtropical, temperate) of planktivorous fishes, (b) tropical planktivorous fishes, (c) all climate ranges of piscivorous fishes, (d) tropical piscivorous fishes, (e) all climate ranges of herbivorous fishes, and (f) tropical herbivorous fishes. Shaded areas of the violin plots are proportional to the number of observations. Points represent mean observed abundance (±1 SE). GLM model results appear in Supplementary Table 4
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Seto KC, Guneralp B, Hutyra LR. Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 2012;109:16083–16088. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1211658109. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. UN. World Urbanization Prospects: the 2014 Revision. ST/ESA/SER.A/366 (United Nations, Department of Economic & Social Affairs, Population Division, 2014).
    1. Dugan, J. E., Airoldi, L., Chapman, M. G., Walker, S. J. & Schlacher, T. Estuarine and Coastal Structures: Environmental effects, a Focus on Shore and Nearshore Structures. Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science, Vol. 8 (Academic Press, Waltham, 2012).
    1. Bulleri F, Chapman MG. The introduction of coastal infrastructure as a driver of change in marine environments. J. Appl. Ecol. 2010;47:26–35. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01751.x. - DOI
    1. Dafforn KA, et al. Marine urbanization: an ecological framework for designing multifunctional artificial structures. Front. Ecol. Environ. 2015;13:82–90. doi: 10.1890/140050. - DOI

Publication types