Abstract

The northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) contains approximately 2,600 oil and gas platforms, resulting in the largest de facto artificial reef system in the world. These structures secondarily serve to increase the amount of hard substrate and vertical relief in the GOM, providing a congregation point for fishes and additional habitat for sessile organisms. As of 2013, 1,227 of these structures had ceased to produce oil and have been scheduled for decommissioning and subsequent removal. These platforms are no longer economically viable infrastructure and are therefore evacuated of crew and lit only for navigation purposes. In an effort for resource managers to better understand the role of oil and gas platforms as artificial reefs, many studies have been published since the 1970‘s that focus on the fish communi-ty structure. However, no one has yet examined the potential differences in community structure or predator- prey dynamics at actively lit platforms versus those that are unlit. This study describes and compares the pelagic fish communities residing at two active and two decommissioned oil and gas platforms in the northern Gulf. Of particular interest are the abundance of large, predatory species and the possible effect of light on predator-prey dynamics. The first portion of this study will examine changes in fish biomass around the standing structures with hydroacoustics data processed with EchoView software. The second will be carried out using high definition stereo-video camera sets post-processed with PhotoMeasure software in order to determine fish species, lengths, and abundances

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