Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, Enric Sala, Gustavo Paredes, Abraham Mendoza, and Enric Ballesteros. 2007. Predictability of reef fish recruitment in a highly variable nursery habitat. Ecology 88:2220–2228.

Appendix C. Design of the artificial Sargassum structure.

The artificial Sargassum was made out of shreds of large brown and black plastic trash bags. The bags were 1.5 m long and 75 cm wide (A). First we cut both sides of the bag in order to have two rectangles attached only from what used to be the bottom of the bag, which served as the base of the artificial frond.  Then, using a sharp knife or scalpel we cut longitudinal strips of approximately 5 cm wide leaving a 5 cm margin on base. In each of the strips we then made small diagonal cuts to simulate the leaves (B). After cutting the bags they were folded longitudinally and stapled at the bottom (C). These artificial fronds floated by themselves once they were underwater (D).

We built a 5 × 5 m frame made of nylon monofilament, held by rocks in each of the four corners (E). We threaded a grid inside the frame every meter, ending up with 25 squares of 1 m². The stapled ends of the bags (artificial fronds) were attached to the grid using nylon monofilament as well. Bare boulders taken from the beach were placed between the artificial fronds to give the frame firmness. Density of plastic bags was similar to that of the natural Sargassum treatment; density of bare boulders placed between the artificial fronds was less than that of bare boulders treatment (Illustrations used with permission by Federico López Castro).