Oil and gas platforms as artificial substrates for epibenthic North Sea fauna: Effects of location and depth

Schutter, Miriam; Dorenbosch, M.; Driessen, Floor M.F.; Lengkeek, Wouter; Bos, O.G.; Coolen, Joop W.P.

doi:10.1016/j.seares.2019.101782

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Yet, several studies have shown that North Sea O&G structures act as artificial reefs and can perform important local and regional ecological roles as natural reefs do (e.g. increasing biodiversity and promoting ecological connectivity; Coolen et al, 2020;Schutter et al, 2019;Tidbury et al, 2019). Based on connectivity modelling, Tidbury et al (2019) estimated that up to 60% of North Sea marine species connectivity could be broken if all O&G structures were removed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echolocation activity of harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, shows seasonal artificial reef attraction despite elevated noise levels close to oil and gas platforms

Clausen

Teilmann

Wisniewska

et al. 2021

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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1. Harbour porpoises frequently alter their behaviour in response to underwater sound from shipping, seismic surveys, drilling and marine renewables. Less well understood is the response of porpoises to sounds emitted from oil and gas (O&G) platforms during routine operations. 2. The responses are not easily predicted as platforms can act simultaneously and to varying degree as a source of disturbance through noise and attraction through an artificial reef effect with increased prey abundance and diversity. 3. To investigate the presence and feeding behaviour of harbour porpoises around platforms, autonomous acoustic loggers were placed for up to 2 years, at 21 stations 0-25.6 km from the largest platform in the Danish North Sea. 4. Harbour porpoises were detected at all distances year round in two distinct seasonal activity patterns. During July-January, porpoises were attracted to the platform as indicated by high foraging activity within 800 m of the platform. Echolocation activity levels were up to twofold higher than those observed at 3.2-9.6 km from the platform. 5. Similar high echolocation activity was observed 200 m from neighbouring offshore installations located within 15 km, regardless of their size, during May-July. 6. This study shows that porpoises may be attracted to offshore O&G platforms despite confirmed elevated underwater noise and are likely exploiting higher prey abundance in the vicinity of such structures. This is possibly due to increased prey availability created by the combined effect of the artificial reef formed by the underwater structure and the local protected area around all platforms where fishery is banned. 7. Hard substrate and untouched seabed are rare and valuable habitats to many organisms in heavily trawled waters like the North Sea, and the ecological importance of these structures should be considered in the development of decommissioning strategies. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echolocation activity of harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, shows seasonal artificial reef attraction despite elevated noise levels close to oil and gas platforms

Clausen

Teilmann

Wisniewska

et al. 2021

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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“…Often, these were drop or towed cameras and the frame and suite of sensors were specifically assembled by the teams conducting the surveys, or pots and traps were modified to target and keep all sizes of specific species. Lastly, opportunistic uses of a technology were less common, except for monitoring biofouling communities, and frequently corresponded to underwater video footage acquired during routine maintenance activities around oil and gas installations, pipelines, or cables, and provided to researchers for their studies (e.g., [42][43][44]). Observers on commercial or recreational fishing boats were also classified as opportunistic.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What’s in My Toolkit? A Review of Technologies for Assessing Changes in Habitats Caused by Marine Energy Development

Hemery

Mackereth

Tugade

2022

JMSE

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Marine energy devices are installed in highly dynamic environments and have the potential to affect the benthic and pelagic habitats around them. Regulatory bodies often require baseline characterization and/or post-installation monitoring to determine whether changes in these habitats are being observed. However, a great diversity of technologies is available for surveying and sampling marine habitats, and selecting the most suitable instrument to identify and measure changes in habitats at marine energy sites can become a daunting task. We conducted a thorough review of journal articles, survey reports, and grey literature to extract information about the technologies used, the data collection and processing methods, and the performance and effectiveness of these instruments. We examined documents related to marine energy development, offshore wind farms, oil and gas offshore sites, and other marine industries around the world over the last 20 years. A total of 120 different technologies were identified across six main habitat categories: seafloor, sediment, infauna, epifauna, pelagic, and biofouling. The technologies were organized into 12 broad technology classes: acoustic, corer, dredge, grab, hook and line, net and trawl, plate, remote sensing, scrape samples, trap, visual, and others. Visual was the most common and the most diverse technology class, with applications across all six habitat categories. Technologies and sampling methods that are designed for working efficiently in energetic environments have greater success at marine energy sites. In addition, sampling designs and statistical analyses should be carefully thought through to identify differences in faunal assemblages and spatiotemporal changes in habitats.

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“…Although video methods have successfully been used to detect the presence of large invertebrates on offshore structures (Karlsson et al, 2021;Schutter et al, 2019;van der Stap et al, 2016), these methods cannot quantify nor identify the benthic community in high detail since most species remain unseen as they are too small to be detected on video or are present out of camera view covered by other species. Scraping and/or suction tools for ROVs are available on the market, e.g.…”

Section: Novel Methods: Remotely Operated Vehiclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in the near future, OWFs in the Netherlands will be developed farther offshore than the current installations. This will likely result in additional common species (Figure 4.2), such as colonies of the soft coral dead man's fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) mixed in the deeper zone with plumose anemones and large sponges, as observed on offshore platforms and shipwrecks (Schrieken et al, 2013;Schutter et al, 2019;van der Stap et al, 2016). Furthermore, encrusting tube worms such as Spirobranchus spp.…”

Section: Expected Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since novel methods may be needed to improve safety and cost efficiency of sample acquisition, a set of methods with which there is no or very limited prior experience in OWFs in the Netherlands as well as methods that are under development, have been included as well. Bouma and Lengkeek, 2013;De Mesel et al, 2015;Krone et al, 2013b;Mavraki et al, 2021;Vanagt and Faasse, 2014 Oil and gas platforms Coolen et al, 2020cCoolen et al, , 2020aCoolen et al, , 2020bLuttikhuizen et al, 2019;Schutter et al, 2019;van der Stap et al, 2016Shipwrecks Coolen et al, 2016Krone and Schröder, 2011;Lengkeek et al, 2013bLengkeek et al, , 2013aSchrieken et al, 2013 Geogenic reefs Coolen et al, 2015a;Lengkeek et al, 2017;Schrieken et al, 2013 The MONS OWF scrape monitoring programme aims to collect quantitative data on the complete epifauna community, including small species, and provide weights and counts of all species. Video monitoring will not be able to provide the needed data, since significant taxonomic detail is often lacking and many species are not visible on video (van der Stap et al, 2016).…”

Section: Location Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sampling hard substrates in Dutch offshore wind farms : work plan towards an offshore wind farm hard substrate sampling & monitoring programme in the Netherlands [MONS-project ID46]

Coolen¹,

Wijnhoven²,

Bergsma³

et al. 2022

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Oil and gas platforms as artificial substrates for epibenthic North Sea fauna: Effects of location and depth

Cited by 17 publications

References 33 publications

Echolocation activity of harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, shows seasonal artificial reef attraction despite elevated noise levels close to oil and gas platforms

Echolocation activity of harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, shows seasonal artificial reef attraction despite elevated noise levels close to oil and gas platforms

What’s in My Toolkit? A Review of Technologies for Assessing Changes in Habitats Caused by Marine Energy Development

Sampling hard substrates in Dutch offshore wind farms : work plan towards an offshore wind farm hard substrate sampling & monitoring programme in the Netherlands [MONS-project ID46]

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