Artificial reefs are deployed for a variety of reasons, often to enhance the productivity of commercial or recreational fisheries. Threatened, endangered or protected (TEP) species are generally not the target of artificial reef programs, but may interact with the structures, raising questions as to whether the reefs might provide resources, or represent a threat due to aggregated fishing pressure. A comprehensive acoustic tagging program of White Sharks () has been running along the east-coast of Australia since 2015. At the same time, monitoring programs, including the installation of acoustic listening stations, were undertaken at seven artificial reefs. This provided the opportunity to monitor interactions between this TEP species and artificial reefs. We recorded 590 interactions from 199 different White Sharks over a four-year period. Most interactions were short, with a mean duration of 14 min and 90% lasting less than 40 min. When the duration of interactions was modelled against a suite of environmental and biological predictor variables, only Chl-a and shark length were influential, but resulted in only very small changes (< 10 min) in the duration of interactions across their range of values. There were temporal trends regarding the frequency of interactions, these were consistent with previously described migration patterns of the eastern Australasian population. Visits were more common at artificial reefs at southern latitudes during summer to autumn, and northern latitudes during winter. There was no evidence of any shark becoming resident at one of the structures, given the short duration of interactions, it is unlikely aggregated fishing pressure at artificial reefs pose a threat to White Sharks. The interactions are likely driven by their inquisitive nature and the timing related to broad scale migratory movements. This study highlights the usefulness of acoustic telemetry networks in monitoring interactions between artificial reefs and TEP species.

中文翻译：

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白鲨（Carcharodon carcharias）与澳大利亚东海岸人工鱼礁之间的相互作用

部署人工鱼礁的原因有多种，通常是为了提高商业或休闲渔业的生产力。受威胁、濒危或受保护 (TEP) 物种通常不是人工鱼礁计划的目标，但可能与结构相互作用，引发珊瑚礁是否可能提供资源或因聚集的捕捞压力而构成威胁的问题。自 2015 年以来，白鲨综合声学标记计划一直在澳大利亚东海岸运行。同时，在七个人工鱼礁开展了监测计划，包括安装声学监听站。这为监测该 TEP 物种与人工鱼礁之间的相互作用提供了机会。我们在四年内记录了 199 只不同白鲨的 590 次互动。大多数互动都很短，平均持续时间为 14 分钟，90% 的互动持续时间不到 40 分钟。当根据一系列环境和生物预测变量对相互作用的持续时间进行建模时，只有叶绿素a和鲨鱼长度具有影响力，但在其值范围内的相互作用持续时间仅产生非常小的变化（<10分钟）。相互作用的频率存在时间趋势，这些趋势与之前描述的东澳大利亚人口的迁移模式一致。夏季至秋季，南纬地区的人工鱼礁和冬季北纬地区的人工鱼礁参观更为常见。没有证据表明任何鲨鱼居住在其中一个建筑上，考虑到相互作用持续时间较短，人工鱼礁的总体捕捞压力不太可能对白鲨构成威胁。这种相互作用可能是由它们的好奇性质和与大规模迁徙运动相关的时间驱动的。这项研究强调了声学遥测网络在监测人工鱼礁和 TEP 物种之间相互作用方面的有用性。