Artificial Coral Reefs as a Method of Coral Reef Fish Conservation

2 Biodiversity is an important factor in all healthy ecosystems. Coral reef ecosystems support an incredibly diverse community of fish species. As coral reefs are in decline due to a combination of factors such as climate change and over fishing, the species which are being supported by the reef are at risk. In particular, coral reef fish communities have been shown to be in decline. Coral reef fish biodiversity is important for the health and sustainability of the coral reef ecosystem and for the ability for coral reef ecosystems to be able to provide ecosystem services. Two particularly important ecosystems services for people provided by reefs are coral reef fisheries, which provide ten percent of the fish consumed globally, and the tourism industry associated with coral reef ecosystems, which is estimated to be worth $9.6 billion annually. Artificial reefs have become increasingly more popular in coral reef ecosystem management and conservation. Artificial reefs have been mainly used in the management of fisheries, but other applications have also been found. A significant loss of coral reef fish biodiversity could have prolific consequences. What are the practical and efficient uses of artificial reefs as a tool to aid in the promotion of biodiversity among coral reef fish communities? I hypothesized that utilizing artificial reefs which are structurally complex would create biologically diverse fish communities, and that this could be done feasibly without extraneous added costs and work by adding rubble to simple artificial reef structures. This topic was explored in the literature and a case study in Koh Tao, Thailand was conducted. In the case study, I hypothesized that adding rubble to simple artificial reef structures would increase the overall biodiversity of the fish communities which would develop at the reef sites and increase the rate at which fish biodiversity would accumulate, without adding excess cost or maintenance to the conservation work already being done. In my study I sought to answer the following questions: (1) How do local fish communities respond to the use of structurally simple artificial reefs? (2) How does increasing the complexity of artificial reefs influence the rate of change of fish biodiversity on the artificial reef sites? (3) Can inexpensive and easy to build artificial reefs create suitable habitats for fish communities? (4) Can structurally complex artificial reefs be built, deployed, and maintained in an economically feasible fashion? Structurally complex artificial reefs were found to be associated …