Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Jackson, Donald C.

Committee Member

Dibble Eric D.

Committee Member

Miranda, Leandro (Steve) E.

Date of Degree

12-10-2010

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Wildlife and Fisheries Science

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Forest Resources

Department

Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture

Abstract

Artificial reefs are important management tools for red snapper, Lutjanus campechanus, fisheries in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. I deployed fish traps (0.97 m long; 0.64 m height; 175 x 115 mm funnel mouth size) to collect red snapper < 406 mm total length (TL) associated with pyramid-shaped artificial reef structures (3.7 m triangular base; 2.4 m height; 3.2 metric tons) to evaluate two reef distribution designs: (1) five closely-spaced pyramid units, and (2) five closely-spaced pyramids with two sets of two pyramids at 30.5, 61.0, and 91.5 m from the five pyramids. In 26 sampling trips, 927 red snapper were captured. Catch per unit effort (fish/hour) did not differ significantly among patterns (P= 0.396). Red snapper lengths differed significantly among patterns (P= 0.005), with the largest mean total length (235 mm, SE= 5.14) occurring at the pattern with 61.0-m spacing.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17049

Comments

artificial reef spacing||growth||site fidelity

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