The first phase of the INSITE (Influence of man-made Structures In The Ecosystem) Programme evolved from the Oil & Gas UK’s Decommissioning Baseline Joint Industry Project JIP (2011-2012) aiming to gather knowledge and experience on decommissioning of offshore structures.
Man-made structures including rigs, pipelines, cables, renewable energy devices, and shipwrecks, offer hard substrate in the largely soft-sediment environment of the North Sea. These structures become colonised by sedentary organisms and non-migratory reef fish and form local ecosystems that attract larger predators including seals, birds and fish.
COSM will address this question by developing a spatio-temporally dynamic model of the food web coupled directly with a Geographic Information System (GIS). In this way, spatial information on habitat type (substrates and bathymetry), environment (temperature, salinity, stratification, primary production) and pressure data (fishing) will be used to model the distribution of benthic and pelagic ecosystem components from infauna to seabirds.
The aim of this study is to investigate and model the species distribution and inter-connectivity of reef communities on offshore structures in the North Sea using different techniques. First, it provides community data from taxonomic species inventories. Second, a cost efficient method for inventory of communities is developed using state-of-the-art DNA metabarcoding. Third, the genetic population structures of the mussel Mytilus edulis and crustacean Jassa Herdmani, abundant invertebrates with different dispersal strategies, are analysed. Ultimately, the data from this study and other available data are used to model the distribution of species on offshore structures and their inter-connectedness.
Installations of oil and gas platforms across the North Sea have introduced substantial amounts of hard substrate to the seafloor. These structures promote dense growth of hard-bottom marine organisms: algae, mussels, tube-building worms, hydroids, anemones and reef-building corals all colonise these platforms from the top of the platform jacket down to the footings resting at the depths of the seafloor. Platforms have been thought to function as “artificial reefs” in the North Sea for decades. However, the magnitude of effects these man-made structures have had in creating a larger inter-connected hard substrate reef system is not known, but current tests of this concept suggest connectivity varies across North Sea regions.
In the North Sea the presence of man-made structures (MMS), such as oil platforms, has greatly expanded. This research project will examine whether there has been an impact on the abundance, distribution and seasonal timing of the plankton community in the Greater North Sea. Plankton lie at the base of the marine food web and as such they initiate and sustain all marine ecosystems – many commercially important organisms such as fish are dependent upon them.
Offshore man-made structures are rapidly expanding in the North Sea. Whereas artificial structures such as oil and gas rigs and ship wrecks have long been present, this expansion is nowadays mainly due to the construction of offshore wind farms. The introduced hard substrates host a fauna that is fundamentally different from the naturally occurring soft sediments that dominate the North Sea ecosystem. These offshore structures hence induce changes in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Knowledge on the magnitude of these effects is indispensable to assess the impact at the ecosystem level, but is currently lacking.
The effect of man-man structures on the marine ecosystem is likely to depend on the type and status of the structure. Commissioning and decommissioning of structures can cause disturbance and displacement of marine mammals. Established structures may also result in displacement due to operational noise, presence of maintenance vessels or habitat destruction. However, such structures may provide refuge for predators or their prey due to access and fishing restrictions within their vicinity. Furthermore, such structures can host artificial reefs and may present foraging opportunities for some predators, for example in a recent paper (Russell et al., 2014) the applicants demonstrated that some seals use such structures for foraging. How either deterrence or attraction to these structures may affect the marine environment is still poorly understood.
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