A fourteen-year overview of the fish assemblages and yield of the two oldest Algarve artificial reefs (southern Portugal)

Abstract

Artificial reefs have been deployed worldwide for the last three decades in response to problems concerning coastal resources, ecosystems and fisheries. In many countries they have became important elements of integrated fisheries management plans. In Portugal two artificial reef systems (ARSs) were deployed by the Portuguese Institute of Marine Research (IPIMAR) in 1990, in the southern coast (Algarve). They were located off Faro and Olhão, over different sea-bottom types and located at different distances from the coastline. To analyse the effect of ARSs deployment on local fish assemblages and to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of mean fishing yields and mean number of species caught, fishing surveys have been conducted over 14 years (256 net sets) using a gillnet to sample the ARS of Faro and Olhão and respective control sites. The fishing yields from the ARs continually exceeded those from the control sites, in both the mean number of species caught and the mean CPUE in weight (1.8–2.6 times); both were higher at Faro. Moreover, the comparison between fish assemblages from the ARS and respective control sites showed that the deployment of the man-made structures did not change the composition of the fish assemblages caught by the gill nets, or the equilibrium of the community, since the relative proportion of the different functional groups of fish remained stable. The ARSs are a useful management tool on the Algarve coast, enhancing and diversifying the catches, thus contributing to improved local artisanal fisheries, which play a major role in this region.