by Jen Wetz, HRI Fisheries Project Manager

HRI’s Fisheries and Ocean Health group led by Dr. Greg Stunz recently started a two-year project to monitor Texas artificial reefs.

Funded through Texas Parks and Wildlife, this project will document fish and other marine life around 14 structures off the coast of Port Aransas, Port O’Connor and Port Mansfield, Texas. These structures are all part of the Texas Artificial Reef Program and consist of oil and gas platforms (Rigs to Reefs), Liberty ships (Ships to Reefs), or concrete and other materials. The project will help provide essential scientific data to assess how fish populations use these Gulf of Mexico habitats.

The goal of this study is to help resource managers get the most out of artificial reef structures and understand how they can best use them to keep marine ecosystems healthy. The scientists will research how physical differences – water depth, distance from shore, complexity and number of structures – affect species abundance and richness.

During the last few decades, artificial reefs have been developed to create and restore habitat, to develop a more productive fishery and to provide more recreational opportunities for activities such as fishing and diving. It's clear that artificial structures can positively affect populations of a diverse biological community, increasing fish abundance and catch rates around these reefs. However, the source of these increases is still debated in the scientific community.

Beginning this spring, the Fisheries and Ocean Health group will conduct surveys using both SCUBA and Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to document each artificial reef structure. Because many of these sites are in water too deep for safe and effective diver surveys, they will use a VideoRay Pro4 ROV, which HRI recently acquired. This micro ROV weighs just over 13 pounds and can attain speeds of up to

ROV in action at Texas State Aquarium.
PHOTO: ALLISON KNIGHT

4 knots. Through a tether attachment and control box, the ROV can be controlled by staff onboard a surface vessel. In addition to a standard video camera in the ROV housing, researchers can attach a high definition (HD) camera to shoot simultaneous HD video. The fisheries group plans to add more accessories to collect even more data. These include manipulator arms, a laser scaler to measure fish size and sonar to accurately locate and map target sites.

In February, VideoRay conducted a “pilot” training session at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi for the Fisheries and Ocean Health group. After learning general piloting skills in the pool, staff and graduate students practiced their ROV piloting skills in the Gulf of Mexico at an artificial reef below a natural gas platform off the coast of Port Aransas. The researchers also honed their skills using several exhibits at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. HRI researcher and project head Jen Wetz said, “It was a real treat to have access to the aquarium during our training week. The aquarium staff was very helpful and allowed us to conduct training sessions in their large tanks – the Flower Gardens and the Islands of Steel. It was a great training experience, and one we hope to repeat very soon!”

Project leaders will follow up on this project after the spring and summer 2012 field season.