PREFACE 



This community profile provides an 

 introduction to the ecology of communities 

 on rubble structures in the South Atlantic 

 Bight (Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to 

 Cape Canaveral, Florida). The most 

 prominent rubble structures in this area 

 are jetties built at the entrances to 

 major harbors. We concentrate much of our 

 discussion on these types of structures 

 since most of the available literature 

 concerns jetties or biological communities 

 similar in species composition to those 

 that occur on jetties. However, we also 

 discuss the ecology of natural hard- 

 substrate habitats in general and how 

 these compare with the communities that 

 develop on rubble structures. It is our 

 hope that this text will serve as a 

 general, yet thorough, review of why such 

 structures are built, their general 

 effects on near shore sediment dynamics, 

 and what forces affect the organisms that 

 live in close association with these 

 structures. 



describe the community composition, 

 distribution, seasonality, and recruitment 

 patterns of the major types of organisms 

 found on rubble structures (plankton, 

 seaweeds, invertebrates, fishes, and 

 birds). We also describe the major 

 species within most of these groups and 

 review some aspects of their basic natural 

 history. In Chapter 4, we discuss the 

 major physical and biological factors 

 affecting the organization of intertidal 

 communities, sunlit subtidal communities, 

 and shaded subtidal communities. We also 

 evaluate the potential effects of complex, 

 and often indirect, interactions in 

 structuring these communities. The 

 effects of rubble structures on shoreline 

 evolution and engineering are considered 

 in the final chapter (Chapter 5) on 

 management considerations. 



Questions or comments concerning this 

 publication or others in the profile 

 series should be directed to: 



After an initial discussion of the 

 different types of rubble structures 

 (Chapter 1) and the physical factors that 

 affect the organisms associated with them 

 (Chapter 2), we devote a major portion of 

 our text to the ecology of rubble- 

 structure habitats. In Chapter 3, we 



Information Transfer Specialist 

 National Wetlands Research Center 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 1010 Gause Boulevard 

 Slidell, LA 70458 



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