California Sea Grant College Program

This project compiled current and historical records of fishes occurring in the vicinity of the San Diego-La Jolla Ecological Reserve (SDLJER), and assessed the effects of the Reserve on the abundance, diversity and population structure of resident fishes. This was accomplished by collection of quantitative data within the Reserve, immediately adjacent to the Reserve, and at site relatively distant from the Reserve that is not part of any marine reserve and subject to more intense fishing pressure. These assessments included transect surveys of densities and size distributions of conspicuous fishes. This study provides critical, but heretofore absent, baseline data for population monitoring of fishes in the Reserve and adjacent rocky-reef and kelp-forest communities in the San Diego region. In addition, records of fishes recorded within the vicinity of the SDLJER were compiled from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Marine Vertebrate Collection in order to provide a detailed list of the ichthyofauna recorded in and around the Reserve.