Abstract:To collect reference material for the construction and management of artificial reefs in Dashentang, community characteristics of attaching organisms on the artificial reefs built in different years were evaluated. Three artificial reefs were lifted in September 2018 from reef areas built in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. The attaching organisms were collected for analysis. The species and number of attaching organisms were different for artificial reefs built in different years. Nonetheless, Crassostrea gigas was a dominant species of attaching organism on all artificial reefs, and in some years it was the only dominant species. These results might be related to the biological environment in the area of sea where the artificial reefs were built. The artificial reef area in our study was adjacent to a natural oyster reef area in Tianjin where the resources for C. gigas were very rich. This was likely the main factor resulting in C. gigas being the absolute dominant species. Because of the short intervals between the time of the survey and when reefs were built, the biological community of attaching organisms had not yet fully formed. Thus, species number, organism number, biomass, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, and Pielou’s evenness index for attaching organisms on reefs built in 2018 were significantly lower than those in earlier years. The species number and organism number of the attaching organisms on reefs built in 2010 were significantly higher than those in other years, but no significant difference in biomass was observed between the parameters for attaching organisms on reefs built in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. The results suggested that species of attached organisms on artificial reefs are greatly affected by the environment in which the reefs were built. The effect of time on the attached organisms was more obvious in the early stages after the reefs were built. When the biomass of attached organisms reached a certain value, the effect was significantly reduced. However, its biological environment continued to slowly improve and its biodiversity gradually increased.
