Study on the Organisms Attachment of Artificial Reefs Constructed with Five Different Cements

Abstract:

In order to study organism attachment on artificial reefs made of different cements, we hanged the artificial reefs constructed with five different cements including Composite Portland cement (P.C), slag Portland cement (P.S), pozzolana Portland cement (P.P), fly ash Portland cement (P.F) and aluminate cement (CA). The artificial reefs were exposed to the marine environment near the Xuejia Island in September 2015. In November 2015, we collected the first water samples to analyze different reef materials on organism attachment. We found that the biomass of fouling organisms on different artificial reefs followed the order P.P > P.S > CA > P.F > P.C, and the values were 888.29 g/m2, 755.43 g/m2, 752.07 g/m2, 620.11 g/m2 and 402.01 g/m2 respectively. The number of organism species on P.S was 7, and it was 5 on P.F, P.P and CA. We collected the second samples in March 2016 and found that CA still had the largest biomass that was 1956.94 g/m2, followed by P.P, P.F, P.C and P.S on which the biomass was 1601.44 g/m2, 1453.06 g/m2, 1254.63 g/m2 and 1072.43 g/m2 respectively. The number of species on P.F, CA, P.S, P.P and P.C was 17, 15, 12, 11 and 8. In the first sampling, the Pielou evenness index (J) followed the order CA > P.P > P.F > P.C > P.S; in the second sampling, the order was P.S > P.F > P.P > CA > P.C. In the first sampling, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H´) of fouling organisms followed the order CA > P.P > P.F > P.C > P.S; in the second sampling, the order was P.S > P.F > P.P > CA > P.C. Our study showed that the aluminate cement and fly ash cement artificial reefs were most suitable for organism attachment, whereas the composite Portland cement had poor biological adhesion capability.