Environmental Biology of Fishes 54: 275–282, 1999. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Fish colonization of an artificial reef in the Gulf of Elat, northern Red Sea Daniel Golania & Ariel Diamantb a Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91904 Jerusalem, Israel (e-mail:
[email protected]) b National Center of Mariculture, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Ltd., Eilat, Israel (e-mail:
[email protected]) Received 15 September 1997 Accepted 10 August 1998 Key words: fish community, recruitment patterns, diversity Synopsis A small near shore artificial reef was constructed in the Gulf of Elat, northern Red Sea at a depth of 22–24 m. The colonization of fishes was monitored for a period of 728 days and a total of 94 species was recorded. Colonization was initially rapid. The first species to appear were Dascyllus trimaculatus and Chaetodon paucifasciatus (day 2). In the first seven months, a gradual increase in the number of species was observed, after which it leveled off. Subsequently, a reduction in the number of individuals increased diversity of the community, as measured by the Shannon & Weaver index. The low complexity of the major components of the artificial reef, in addition to its location on a muddy, silty substrate, resulted in a constant cover of fine grain particles which presumably discouraged settlement of invertebrates and small cryptic fish species on the artificial reef. Introduction land runoff, large-scale recreational tourism, extensive scuba diving activity and, most recently, the addition ; ; ; The coral reefs of the Red Sea are considered to be of mariculture net pens.1 2 3 4 among the most diverse and exquisite of the Indo- Pacific zoogeographical region (Loya 1972).