Fish associated with artificial reefs in False Bay, South Africa: a preliminary survey

This study compares the suprabenthic fish assemblages inhabiting eight ship wrecks in False Bay with those found on adjacent natural reefs. 3411 fishes of 18 species were recorded on the wrecks. Species densities recorded on w recks in both shallow and deep water (1.05 +/- 0.07 and 1.01 +/- 0.43 speci es/100 m(2)) were lower than those for natural reefs within the same depth zones (1.15 +/- 0.21 to 1.81 +/- 1.40 species/100 m(2)). In shallow water, reef teleost densities were lower on the wrecks (13.02 +/- 2.56 fishes/100 m(2)) than on natural reefs (44.02 +/- 28.72 to 58.42 +/- 24.15 fishes/100 m(2)), while in deep water the difference was smaller (61.99 +/- 51.61 fish es/100 m(2) compared to 40.57 +/- 20.64 to 62.92 +/- 20.77 fishes/100 m(2)) . These results suggest that artificial reefs provide limited benefits to F alse Bay reef fishes and fisheries. In part this is due to their inappropri ate location. Should future artificial reefs be deployed at more optimal si tes, their benefits to reef fishes could be enhanced, without affecting the ir popularity as scuba dive sites.