The 2020 Florida Artificial Reef Summit…

Still on a Screen Near You.

For more than three decades, UF/IFAS Extension and Florida Sea Grant have played a primary leadership role in the evolution of Florida’s artificial reef program. This includes coordination with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to host regular regional artificial reef workshops, which culminate to a statewide “Florida Artificial Reef Summit” every 5 years.

These reef workshops are designed to foster awareness, communication and collaboration among stakeholders – who include artificial reef manufacturers, coordinators, regulators, wildlife managers, researchers and recreational user groups. Consistent regional workshops build perspective across the state and allow for evaluation of the changing needs of the broader artificial reef community.

The 2020 Florida Artificial Reef Summit theme was timely entitled “Bringing the Future of Florida’s Artificial Reefs into Focus,” and contributions featured lessons learned, areas requiring greater focus, and visions for the future of artificial reefs in Florida. Planning for the 2020 Summit began in 2018, convening a steering committee of 15 that included county government artificial reef coordinators, FWC employees and UF/IFAS & Florida Sea Grant faculty.

Originally scheduled for April 2020, the Summit was postponed due to the COVID pandemic, and ultimately reformatted from an in-person conference to a virtual event. Fortunately, the original agenda and participant list remained almost entirely intact throughout the transition. The Summit included presentations from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Army Corps of Engineers, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, research faculty at multiple universities, and a broad spectrum of county coordinators and industry representatives.

• The Keynote Address was delivered by Dr. Bill Lindberg, who has spent almost forty years on the assessment of reef fisheries habitat and the application of artificial reefs in fisheries management.
• A special Hindsight is 2020 session engaged Dr. Jim Bohnsack and Dr. Heyward Mathews, who together have over a century of artificial reef research experience, as they reflected on lessons learned and the best focus for future efforts.
• Presentations and Posters addressed today’s most relevant topics facing the future of Florida’s artificial reefs, including environmental mitigation, fisheries management, inshore applications, impacts of natural disturbances, human dimensions, socioeconomics, tourism, and regulatory and policy frameworks. Check out the full program book of abstracts!
• A moderated Q&A panel discussion was designed to engage dialogue between speakers and participants, highlighting current fisheries management considerations, including the impact that artificial reefs have on catchability of multiple commercially and recreationally important marine species.

None of this would have been possible without the support of our Summit sponsors, who contributed time, money and valuable insight to the 2020 Summit.

Almost two hundred registered attendees participated in the virtually reformatted 2020 Summit. Hundreds more have interacted with Summit speakers and attendees by following the Summit LIVE on our Florida Artificial Reefs Facebook page.

We look forward to an in-person Summit in 2025, but are thrilled to share all of the science from the 2020 Summit in this virtual format…click to view On a Screen Near You!

(Or just check out the menu below for links to each of the presentations.)

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