Abstract

Despite the global increase in mangrove restoration efforts, our understanding of the outcomes and recovery of biodiversity is limited due to the lack of long-term monitoring in most restoration projects. Long-term data is urgently needed on how mangrove restoration influences fish assemblage recovery over time to inform us about the effectiveness of mangrove restoration programs in re-establishing functional fish habitats for spawning, feeding, and shelter. Here, we used a space-for-time approach to investigate if restored mangroves can attain similar fish communities as natural mangroves of the same age. Fishes were sampled using gillnets to collect data on the abundance, species richness, and biomass. We found higher fish abundance, species richness, and biomass in the restored mangroves than in natural mangroves. Nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS), analysis of similarities (ANOSIM), and similarity percentage analysis (SIMPER) revealed that fish species composition was not significantly different among the restored and natural mangrove habitats, age, seasons, and diel cycle (p> 0.05). There was no clear trajectory between fish abundance, species richness, biomass, and the ages of the restored and natural mangrove habitats. Despite younger restored habitats having lower structural complexity, they were characterized by higher fish abundance and species richness than older habitats. Our study provides insights into the ongoing discourse about the capacity of restoration initiatives to yield ecological benefits, such as fisheries enhancement. Our findings highlight the potential of mangrove restoration in reinstating habitat structure and promoting the recovery of associated fish communities over time.