630 



Fishery Bulletin 97(3), 1999 



able to confirm the presence of shell deposits from 

 sediments collected by SCUBA divers. 



Red snapper first settled in June, showed peaks 

 in July, August, and September, then quickly declined 



in numbers from the habitat. There is evidence that 

 this decline of age-0 red snapper from open relatively 

 fiat habitats in the fall results from larger age-0 fish 

 migi'ating to reef structure. In a study offish recruit- 

 ment to 1-m'^ concrete artificial reefs, 20 km south of 

 Mobile Bay, age-0 red snapper showed large (up to 

 89 fish/reef) influxes to these reefs in September and 

 October.- This seasonal pattern was similar to the 

 pattern suggested by Holt and Arnold ( 1982). They 

 found that recruitment of small red snapper to 

 benthic substrate occurred primarily from June 

 through September, and in the fall a few larger age-0 

 fish were collected by trap near a sunken ship.'* 



Metamorphosis from larva to juvenile is ecologi- 

 cally important in the early life history of fish. In 



- Szedlmayor, S. T. 1994. Production or attraction: an evalu- 

 ation of artificial reefs in coastal Alabama. Alabama Univer- 

 sities Tennessee Valley Research Consortium Final Report, Au- 

 burn University, Auburn, AL, 48 p. 



3 Holt, S. A. 1997. Marine Science Institute, Univ. Texas, Port 

 Aransas, TX. Personal commun. 



Figure 4 



Mean CPUE lnumber/10-min tow) of age-0 red snapper, 

 Lutjanus campechanus, by station from the northeast Gulf 

 of Mexico. Error bars are standard errors, and n's are num- 

 ber of trawl tows. Different letters show significant differ- 

 ences both within and between years (ANOVA; Waller- 

 Duncan test; P<0.05). 



