How deep into a structure - an artificial or a natural reef - is utilized as habitat by settling organisms? e.g - how far inside a gap between boulders of a breakwater, we can expect to find encrusting organisms?
Any papers on the subject will be appreciated.
In the long term I think you will find organisms establishing and growing at about 1% of incident surface light intensity. The structure of the artificial reef will influence the relative depth at which growths will occur.
Tomer,
The depth of colonization within a reef matrix is light dependant for encrusting autotrophs, but for sessile encrusting heterotrophs it's probably the water flow, i.e. food supply, that would be the key limiting factor. So the depth of colonization within the reef matrix is complex and will depend on numerous factors. The two attached papers may be of some help to get you started.
Tomas
Tomas,
Thank you very much!
Sherrard et al., 2016, is exactly what I needed.
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