In this study, we compared the early fish colonization of three types of artificial reefs deployed in the coastal waters of Saba and St Eustatius in the Caribbean: reef balls®, layered cakes and piles of locally obtained basaltic rock. As an indicator of performance, three fish assemblage parameters (abundance, biomass, species richness) were measured using underwater visual censuses at 11 months post-deployment and 4 months after restoration from hurricane damage. All artificial reef plots showed higher values for fish abundance, biomass and species richness than control plots covered by bare sand, which shows that artificial reefs can locally enhance the fish assemblage. However, the effect differed among artificial reef plots. Fish abundance was 3.8 times higher on the layered cake plots compared to the reef ball plots, while fish biomass was 4.6 times higher. Rock pile plots had intermediate values. Species richness did not differ significantly among different artificial reef plots. Threedimensional modelling revealed that layered cakes had a smaller gross volume, shelter volume and total surface area than reef balls. The availability of multiple small shelters in the layered cake design appeared to be more relevant than other physical parameters, as the layered cake plots had higher fish abundance than the reef balls plots. We concluded that on Saba and St. Eustatius, layered cake plots performed better than reef ball plots after one year of colonization. Rock pile plots, made of local volcanic rock, showed an intermediate performance, and were 4–10 times cheaper to construct. If observed differences are consistent with other locations and persist allocated to deploy artificial reef structures with a higher shelter density.

中文翻译：

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早期殖民时期三种常见人工鱼礁设计的鱼类组合

在这项研究中，我们比较了部署在加勒比海萨巴岛和圣尤斯特歇斯岛沿海水域的三种人工鱼礁的早期鱼类定居情况：礁球®、层状蛋糕和成堆的当地玄武岩。作为性能指标，在部署后 11 个月和从飓风破坏中恢复后 4 个月，使用水下视觉普查测量了三种鱼类组合参数（丰度、生物量、物种丰富度）。所有人工鱼礁地块的鱼类丰度、生物量和物种丰富度均高于裸沙覆盖的对照地块，表明人工鱼礁可以局部增强鱼类群落。然而，人工鱼礁地块的效果不同。与礁球地块相比，分层饼块地块的鱼类丰度高 3.8 倍，而鱼类生物量是 4。高出 6 倍。岩桩地块具有中间值。不同人工鱼礁地块之间的物种丰富度没有显着差异。三维建模显示，与礁球相比，层状蛋糕的总体积、遮蔽体积和总表面积更小。分层蛋糕设计中多个小庇护所的可用性似乎比其他物理参数更相关，因为分层蛋糕地块的鱼类丰度高于礁球地块。我们得出的结论是，在 Saba 和 St. Eustatius 上，定植一年后，分层蛋糕地块的表现优于礁球地块。由当地火山岩制成的岩桩地块表现出中等性能，建造成本低 4-10 倍。