Benthic community settled on an Artificial Reef in the Western Adriatic Sea (Italy)

Quantitative benthic samples were collected for two years from the horizontal and vertical walls of the concrete modules of Senigallia artificial reef (northern Adriatic sea) to investigate the community settled after about ten years from reef deployment. The artificial structures resulted colonised by a typical eutrophic water community dominated by filter-feeders and showed a different structure on vertical and horizontal surfaces, due to some environmental factors such as siltation, wave motion and currents.