Benthic macrofauna productivity enhancement by an artificial reef in Delaware Bay, USA

To understand the potential enhancement value of a habitat-loss mitigation reef in Delaware Bay, especially as a source of food for fishery resources, the secondary productivity of the reef epifauna and nearby sand infauna was estimated and compared. The mean production of natural sand infauna was estimated at between 215 and 249 kcal m(2) yr(-1), while that of the epifauna on the reef surfaces was between 3990 and 9555 kcal m(2) yr(-1). With the 36 m(2) footprint of a reef unit as a basis for comparison, the 407 m(2) of reef unit surface covering that footprint produced 1.62-3.89 X 10(6) kcal yr(-1) of epifauna compared with 7.74-8.96 X 10(3) kcal yr(-1) per footprint area for the adjacent sand infauna. There was, however, substantial annual variability in the productivity of the epifauna, based on the recruitment success of Mytilus edulis.