1st Edition

Artificial Reefs Refining their Role in the Environment and Local Economies

232 Pages 46 Color Illustrations
by CRC Press

Artificial Reefs: Refining their Role in the Environment and Local Economies represents the accumulation of over 50 years of research on artificial reefs as offered through the 12 th International Conference on Artificial Reefs and Related Aquatic Habitats (CARAH) held in Colombia in Spring 2025. The edited, multi-authored chapters offer an up-to-date examination of the broadest areas of... Read more

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Stephen A. Bortone, Oscar Delgallio-G, and Ilana Rosental Zalmon

Chapter 2 - The complex trend of fish diversity in an artificial reef system of the Caribbean off Colombia

Oscar Delgadillo-G, Sven Zea, and Camilo B. García

Chapter 3 - The Historical Context, Current Status, Management Practices, and Future Development of Artificial Reefs in China

Tao Tian

Chapter 4 - Two Decades of Artificial Reef Research in New South Wales, Australia

Matthew D. Taylor, Alistair Becker

Chapter 5 - Understanding the Ecological Role of Artificial Structures Amidst Global Change: A Perspective

Avery B. Paxton

Chapter 6 - Enhancing Nektonic Communities and Juvenile Fish Biodiversity with Reef cubes® Deployments in Torbay, United Kingdom

Samuel Hickling, James Murphy, Ferrante Grasselli

Chapter 7 - New insights in to the use of baited video and baited traps for assessing the structure and function of fish and mobile invertebrate communities associated with artificial reefs

Zhongxin Wu, Liwei Si, James R. Tweedley, Neil R. Loneragand, Yanchao Zhang, Zheyang Ou, and Tao Tian

Chapter 8 - The Ecological Importance of Offshore Pipelines as  Artificial Reefs and Their Potential in Fishery Management: A Case Study in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico

Ann Scarborough-Bull, Milton S. Love, Mary M. Nishimoto, Umarfarooq A. Abdulwahab, and Christopher M. Prosser

Chapter 9 - Changes in Florida’s (USA) Artificial Reef Program: Managing expectations and challenges to benefit diverse stakeholders and ecosystems.

Carolyn Kalinowski and Keith Mille

Chapter 10 - Citizen Science - Community Engagement in Research, and Coastal Stewardship in Florida’s (USA) Northern Gulf of America: The Taylor County Artificial Reef Monitoring Program

Victor Blanco

Chapter 11 - Social Sciences in Artificial Reefs: Past “Gaps” and Future Directions

Jorge Ramos

Chapter 12- The “Gap” in Artificial Reef Assessments: The Need for a Combination of Social and Ecological Approaches

Jessica Salaün, Sylvain Pioch, and Jean-Claude Dauvin

Chapter 13 - Artificial Reefs: A perspective of what we learned and what we should do next

Juliano Silva Lima, Igor David da Costa, and Ilana Rosental Zalmon

Biography

Stephen A. Bortone, PhD., retired as Executive Director of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council and now serves as a principal in an environmental consulting firm (Osprey Aquatic Sciences, LLC) specializing in fisheries and other aquatic sciences. Formerly, he was Director of the Minnesota Sea Grant College Program located in Duluth where he had an appointment as Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Also, he held positions as Director of the Marine Laboratory at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation in Sanibel, Florida, Director of Environmental Science at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, and Director of the Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Research while Professor of Biology at the University of West Florida. Dr. Bortone received the B.S. degree (Biology) from Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania; the M.S. degree (Biological Sciences) from Florida State University, Tallahassee; and the Ph.D. (Marine Science) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1973.

For the past 57 years, he has conducted research on fisheries and the life history of aquatic organisms, especially fishes, chiefly in the southeastern U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. He has published over 180 scientific articles on the broadest aspects of the Aquatic Sciences but mostly on Fisheries. In addition, he has edited nine books on the aquatic sciences: Sea Grasses, Biology of the Spotted Sea Trout, Estuarine Indicators, Artificial Reefs in Fisheries Management (with F. Brandini, G. Fabi, and S. Otake), Interrelationships between Corals and Fisheries, and Red Snapper Biology in a Changing World (with S. Szedlmayer), and Modern Fisheries Engineering (with S. Otake), and this volume - all with CRC Press; as well as Marine Artificial Reef Research and Development: Integrating Fisheries Management Objectives published by the American Fisheries Society.

Conducting his research and teaching activities, Dr. Bortone has traveled widely. He has served as Visiting Scientist at The Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz, Germany) and conducted extensive field surveys with colleagues from La Laguna University in the Canary Islands. He was Mary Ball Washington Scholar at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has received numerous teaching and research awards, including the title “Fellow” from the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, “Certified Fisheries Professional” by the American Fisheries Society and “Certified Senior Ecologist” by the Ecological Society of America.

Oscar Delgadillo-G, MS.,  holds a degree in Marine Biology from the Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano and a Master’s degree in Marine Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He is the founder and principal of MoAm S.A.S., a Colombian research firm, where he has formulated and developed 44 projects, 37 of which were led by MoAm, in collaboration with 48 public environmental and management institutions, private companies, NGOs, research institutes, and universities.

His career has largely focused on the design, implementation, and assessment of artificial reefs for artisanal fisheries, ecological restoration, and biodiversity conservation along the Caribbean coast of Colombia, with recent expansion into the Pacific region. His research disciplines also encompass marine and coastal ecology, fish and invertebrate biology, mariculture, invasive and endangered species, protected areas, the design of monitoring programs, and both biophysical and socioeconomic assessments.

To date, he has authored 14 research articles, book chapters, and institutional books, as well as 41 academic abstracts, two biodiversity datasets, and 46 technical reports. He has directed and advised seven undergraduate theses in marine biology and has served as a peer reviewer for eight international scientific journals. Most recently, he served as chair and organizer of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Reefs and Related Aquatic Habitats (CARAH), held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Ilana R. Zalmon, PhD., has a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Rio de Janeiro (1984), a Master's degree in Biological Sciences (Zoology) from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1988), a PhD in Biological Sciences (Zoology/Biosciences) from the University of São Paulo (1995), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara (2007-2008), where she studied fish associated with biogenic structures. She is a Senior Professor at the University of Northern Rio de Janeiro, where she works since 1995 as a teacher and researcher. Her studies focus on the ecology of natural marine communities (rocky shores, sandy beaches) and experimental communities (biofouling and artificial reefs), as well as the management and conservation of coastal and fishery resources (surf zone fish and artisanal fisheries). Since 1996, artificial reefs have become one of her main research topics, encompassing studies on materials, dimensions, functions, analytical methods, reef design, ecological theories, socioeconomic aspects, and productive potential. She is the author of more than 130 scientific papers and 17 book chapters related to artificial reefs, coastal ecosystems, and their anthropogenic impacts. One of her major scientific contributions has been the supervision of around 70 undergraduate, master´s, PhD and postdoctoral students.