Abstract

Artificial reefs have been deployed around the world, especially in the northern Gulf of Mexico in areas with limited natural reef habitat (Bortone 2011). These artificial habitats are important for red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) as this species is typically a dominant component of these fish communities (Szedlmayer et al. 2020). Considering the common association of red snapper with artificial reefs, it is important to determine if artificial reefs have similar ecological func-tions compared to natural reefs for this species. Acoustic telemetry is a valuable method that can provide comparisons of red snapper movement, site fidelity and fishing mortality among different habitat types. However, most previous telemetry studies on red snapper examined habitat use around artificial reefs (Williams-Grove and Szedlmayer 2020). Thus, there was little information available for comparing the habitat use patterns of red snapper between artificial and natural reefs. The purpose of the present study was to compare home range area, site fidelity and fishing mortality of red snapper between natural and artificial reefs. This study provides a comparison of the functional ecology of artificial and natural reefs for red snapper that will help in the management of this species and in the evaluation of future artificial reef deployments.

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