Work

Community structure of southern California’s subtidal rocky reefs and implications for artificial reef design

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: With the rapid growth of the blue economy worldwide, the footprint of marine infrastructure is expanding. In highly developed coastal regions such as southern California (USA), novel human-made structures can help compensate for the loss of nearshore hard-bottom habitats. However, it is critical to establish a baseline understanding of how natural rocky reef communities vary across habitat gradients to inform marine infrastructure design. Here, we used an extensive biodiversity survey of the Southern California Bight between 2016 and 2023 to investigate patterns in species abundance, diversity, and community zonation across depths accessible to SCUBA (≤25 m) at both mainland and island habitats across 25 artificial and 66 natural reefs. Overall, artificial reefs supported higher fish densities and similar macroinvertebrate densities compared to natural reefs, but had lower macroalgae densities. While fish species richness on artificial reefs was similar to that observed on natural reefs, the diversity of macroinvertebrates and macroalgae was lower. Community composition also differed by reef type: artificial reefs constructed far from natural reefs, and on soft bottom habitat with high turbidity, supported different communities than those established on artificial reefs adjacent to natural reef habitat in cooler waters. Fish communities were more consistent across artificial and natural reefs than other taxa and were consistently dominated by blacksmith Chromis punctipinnis . Patterns of community zonation also differed between mainland and island reef contexts. Together, these findings provide key ecological insights to inform the design and placement of future marine infrastructure to enhance populations of rocky reef species.

Source: Marine Ecology Progress Series

DOI: 10.3354/meps14991

Authors: Zoë J. Kitchel, Jeremy T. Claisse, Dan Pondella, Chelsea M. Williams, Jonathan P. Williams, Donna M. Schroeder

Institutions: Occidental College, California State Polytechnic University, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

Language: English

Topic: Marine Biology and Ecology Research

Subfield: Oceanography

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Life below water

Open Access status: hybrid