Hughes David J, Shimmield Tracy M, Black Kenneth D, Howe John A
Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Argyll PA37 1QA, United Kingdom.
SAMS Research Services Ltd. (SRSL), Lismore Suite, Malin House, European Marine Science Park, Oban, Argyll PA37 1SZ, United Kingdom.
Sci Rep. 2015 May 5;5:9985. doi: 10.1038/srep09985.
Deep-Sea Tailings Placement (DSTP) from terrestrial mines is one of several large-scale industrial activities now taking place in the deep sea. The scale and persistence of its impacts on seabed biota are unknown. We sampled around the Lihir and Misima island mines in Papua New Guinea to measure the impacts of ongoing DSTP and assess the state of benthic infaunal communities after its conclusion. At Lihir, where DSTP has operated continuously since 1996, abundance of sediment infauna was substantially reduced across the sampled depth range (800-2020 m), accompanied by changes in higher-taxon community structure, in comparison with unimpacted reference stations. At Misima, where DSTP took place for 15 years, ending in 2004, effects on community composition persisted 3.5 years after its conclusion. Active tailings deposition has severe impacts on deep-sea infaunal communities and these impacts are detectable at a coarse level of taxonomic resolution.
陆地矿山的深海尾矿排放（DSTP）是目前正在深海进行的几项大规模工业活动之一。其对海底生物群影响的规模和持续性尚不清楚。我们在巴布亚新几内亚的利希尔岛和米西马岛矿山周围进行了采样，以测量正在进行的深海尾矿排放的影响，并在其结束后评估底栖动物群落的状况。在利希尔岛，自1996年以来一直在持续进行深海尾矿排放，与未受影响的参考站相比，在整个采样深度范围（800 - 2020米）内，沉积物内栖动物的丰度大幅降低，同时高级分类群的群落结构也发生了变化。在米西马岛，深海尾矿排放持续了15年，于2004年结束，其结束3.5年后，对群落组成的影响仍然存在。活跃的尾矿沉积对深海内栖动物群落有严重影响，并且在粗略的分类分辨率水平上这些影响是可检测到的。
