Environmental Factor Analysis of Snow Crab Associated with Artificial Reefs

摘要

Enhancing the environment through deployment of artificial reefs begins with determining those environmental factors that are limiting to target organisms. Properly designed artificial reefs can increase, enhance, improve, or, in some instances, interfere with those environmental factors that benefit some fishery-associated species. Consequentiy, it is essential that fishery managers identify the species' specific limiting factors that are influenced by an artificial reef deployment. Subsequently, acost—benefit analysis can be conducted to determine the feasibility of designing, constructing, and deploying artificial reefs to benefit a fishery. Here, we examine the effect of these artificial reefs deployments on the snow crab Chionoecetes opilio off Japan and the environmental factors with which it associates. This study was conducted to allow an analysis of the environmental response to the deployment of artificial reefs through an examination of the life history and population parameters of thesnow crab.