418 



Calf Reef, St. Thomas, V. I., in February, and a fourth unit was installed at 

 Gloucester, Mass. in May. Cooperating scientists subsequently developed MDSA 

 sites at Mattituck, L.I., N.Y. and Key West, Fla. 



Discs from the site near the New Jersey car reef have been collected monthly 

 and analyzed. Attached organisms fluctuated seasonally (fig. 21) with general 

 low levels of reproduction and colonization during winter months. Unattached, 

 motile organisms such as gammarid and caprellid amphipods tend to occur when 

 habitat or cover is provided by hydroids or tube-building polychaete worms. 



Severe competition for settling space develops between those epibenthic in- 

 vertebrate species fed upon by finflsh and forms not generally used as food. 

 Several large invertebrate species have been noted to compete directly with fin- 

 fish for available food species. The seastar, Asterias forhesii, is an important 

 predator on mussels and barnacles at the New Jersey site. The sea urchin, Lyte- 

 chinus sp., is the dominant invertebrate predator on the Charleston, S. C. site 

 and competes with game fish for barnacles, a dominant encrusting food species 

 at this site. A small flatworm, Styloclms sp., is an important predator on barna- 

 cles at both the New Jersey and Charleston, S. C. site. 



Gut content of fishes associated with car reefs and MDSA sites were analyzed 

 to determine game fish use of epibenthic resources. The diet of many fishes indi- 

 cates they feed exclusively upon attached and motile epifauna and are in direct 

 competition with each other and invertebrate predators. Other species appear to 

 forage on invertebrate species which live in bottom sediments adjacent to car 

 reefs. These infaunal species are therefore important in the ecology of certain 

 reef dwelling fishes. 



During the first 10 months of the study, rulbber appeared to be the most desir- 

 able substratum for colonization by most epibenthic organisms. After 18 months,, 

 however, concrete appeared to be an equally elfective or superior substratum. 

 Certain chemical components of raw concrete may have leached out which had 

 inhibited normal settlement or attachment of invertebrate larvae on the con- 

 crete discs during the early months of submergence. Steel, the poorest substratum 

 in terms of colonization by epibenthic invertebrates, undergoes rapid corrosion 

 which prevents formation of well developed communities. 



Discs from the Virgin Island MDSA site indicated the development of epiben- 

 thic associations on artificial habitats proceeds slowly in this tropical environ- 

 ment. Evidently, finfishes grazing removed the fauna as rapidly as it became 

 established. 



Jack B. Peaece and James R. Chess. 



[Progress in Sport Fishery Research, 1969, p. 185] 



AETIFICIAl, KEEF DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT 



During the first four years of our artificial reef program we found answers for 

 many of the questions we posed at the inception of this study. Some of the in- 

 formation we can now provide includes : 1) the cost and methods of building reefs 

 with several different materials, 2) life expectancy of car body reefs, 3) techni- 

 ques to use in building effective tire reefs, 4) which substrate appears to be most 

 effective for colonization by epibenthic organisms, and 5) feeding habits of vari- 

 ous fisih on artificial habitats. 



There are still many questions we are trying to answer. One of the problems 

 that has confronted us throughout our study is highly restricted visibility on our 

 artificial reefs in the New York Bight because of turbid water conditions. We 

 had hoped to obtain quantitative data on fishes and study their behavior on arti- 

 ficial habitats through the use of SCUBA. With poor visibility, however, this 

 has proved impractical. 



With the addition of two reefs, one off Sea Girt, N. J., and the other off the coast 

 of southern Georgia, we now have 8 experimental reefs under study. We gave 

 technical assistance to groups creating 8 more reefs along the east coast, two off 

 the coast of New York, one in Chesapeake Bay, three off the coast of South 

 Carolina, and one each in Georgia and Florida. We completed a preconstruction 

 survey and site selection off Chincoteague, Va., in a cooperative experimental 

 reef effort between the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and the Sandy 

 Hook Marine Laboratory. 



Our cooperative study with the Environmental Control Administration's Bu- 

 reau of Solid Waste Management investigating the use of scrap tires as arti- 



