School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-4-2026
Abstract
As global fisheries stocks have decreased due to overfishing and climate change, artificial reefs have gained significant attention. In addition to providing or restoring habitat, artificial reefs may serve as carbon capture sinks and potential climate mitigation strategies. The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Reef is an artificial reef located in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas. The RGV Reef area spans 1,650 acres and is comprised of hundreds of groupings of recycled and pre-formed materials ranging from low relief (1–2 ft) to high relief (8–30 ft) reef structures. This reef provides a variety of novel habitat stepping-stones for multiple fish species at different life stages and supports local fisheries. Since the deployment of reef structures, fish biomass and abundance are substantially higher than expected for unconsolidated soft-bottom habitats; however, quantifying fish biomass is necessary to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different structural types. For this study, a Simrad EK80 split-beam sonar was used to estimate fish biomass at the reef sites. Biomass was calculated using fish echo returns and length-weight relationships. The standing stock of fish carbon contained within the fish populations associated with the RGV Reef was assessed using literature-derived measurements. The total fish biomass within the RGV Reef area was estimated at 24.4 tons, equating to 2.81 metric tons of carbon within the fish population. This study provides important information on the factors influencing fish biomass in this reef and the amount of carbon held in fish biomass within a previously overlooked potential blue carbon ecosystem.
Recommended Citation
White, Allison K., Md Saydur Rahman, and Richard J. Kline. "Comparison of fish biomass and fish carbon content associated with reef sites at the Rio Grande Valley artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico." PLoS One21, no. 6 (2026): e0350204. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0350204
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
PLoS One
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0350204
Comments
© 2026 White et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.