Reef recruitment of fishes from inshore survey sites off the Alabama coast, Summer 2011

The early stages of marine fishes are probably the most susceptible life stages to any oil spill effects, especially considering the timing overlap between peak reef fish recruitment and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This timing overlap would suggest that reef fish larval and juvenile stages (e.g. red snapper) may have suffered higher mortalities from the recent Gulf oil spill resulting in subsequent year-class failures. The study area was approximately 20-50 km south of Mobile Bay, Alabama, U.S.A., at depths of 20 to 40 m. Small reef habitats (0.3 x 1.2 x 1.2 m) were constructed and secured to the substrate with ground anchors. These “small” reefs have shown very high recruitment of young age-0 and age-1 fishes based on surveys in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Reefs were surveyed for abundance and size estimates of associated reef fish communities with SCUBA visual, video and digital camera surveys. We built 30 reefs in July 2011, and complete fish surveys on all reefs in August-September 2011. We also completed surveys in June 2011 on the reef design that were built in 2010 as part of another project.