Abstract

Artificial reefs are man-made structures that are used to create habitat in locations where there is little natural hard bottom habitat (coral, limestone, etc.). In the Gulf of Mexico, structures used to create artificial reefs include decom-missioned oil and gas platforms, tanks, ships, and concrete. The ecosystem structure, and consequently the trophic assem-blage, can differ among artificial reefs based on differences in individual site characteristics, such as structure type. This study examined the trophic structure of the fish community at thirteen artificial reef structures in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico along the Texas coast. These reef sites were predominately composed of oil and gas platforms (either cutoff or toppled), but some reefed ships were also included in the analysis. In order to characterize and determine if differences existed between structure types, we analyzed video data collected using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). A trophic level and trophic guild were assigned to each fish species identified using data from FishBase. No significant differences were found in overall mean trophic level among individual reef sites and structure types. The two most domi-nant trophic guilds present at all three structure types (cutoff rigs, toppled rigs, and ships) were piscivores and invertivores, though this was likely biased by large size and thus “visibility” of these groups. Additional analyses from on-going sur-veys should provide a more comprehensive assessment of artificial reef trophic structure and include characteristics such as structure age and proximity to other artificial reef or natural bank sites.

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