“…In contrast, there is a paucity of experimental investigations on associations of fishes with anchored fish aggregating devices (AFADs) particularly in tropical waters, and more so in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Although some studies have been conducted in the WIO such as Seychelles Ramos et al, 2010;Robert et al, 2012), Maldives (Govinden et al, 2013), Comoros (Cayré, 1991;Cayre et al, 1991;Rey-Valette et al, 2000), Reunion island and Mauritius (Houbert, 2009;Beverly et al, 2012), research on coastal waters of the African continent are scarce. Additionally, much of the focus in the tropical and temperate waters has been on the open water DFADs and concentrated on fish species composition (Dempster and Taquet, 2004), movements and residence times (Dagorn et al, 2007), aspects of bycatch (Dagorn et al, 2013;Davies et al, 2014), and fishing techniques (Dempster and Taquet, 2004).…”