van der Stap Tim, Coolen Joop W P, Lindeboom Han J
IMARES Wageningen UR-Institute for Marine Resource & Ecosystem Studies, P.O. Box 57, 1780 AB, Den Helder, The Netherlands.
Chair group Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen UR, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2016 Jan 8;11(1):e0146324. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146324. eCollection 2016.
Offshore platforms are known to act as artificial reefs, though there is on-going debate on whether this effect is beneficial or harmful for the life in the surrounding marine environment. Knowing what species exist on and around the offshore platforms and what environmental variables influence this species assemblage is crucial for a better understanding of the impact of offshore platforms on marine life. Information on this is limited for offshore platforms in the southern North Sea. This study aims to fill this gap in our knowledge and to determine how the composition and the abundance of species assemblages changes with depth and along a distance-from-shore gradient. The species assemblages on five offshore gas platforms in the southern North Sea have been inventoried using Remotely Operated Vehicles inspection footage. A total of 30 taxa were identified. A Generalised Additive Model of the species richness showed a significant non-linear relation with water depth (p = 0.001): from a low richness in shallow waters it increases with depth until 15-20 m, after which richness decreases again. Using PERMANOVA, water depth (p≤0.001), community age (p≤0.001) and the interaction between distance from shore and community age (p≤0.001) showed a significant effect on the species assemblages. Future research should focus on the effect additional environmental variables have on the species assemblages.
海上平台被认为起到了人工礁石的作用，不过对于这种影响对周围海洋环境中的生物是有益还是有害，目前仍存在争议。了解海上平台及其周围存在哪些物种，以及哪些环境变量影响了这种物种组合，对于更好地理解海上平台对海洋生物的影响至关重要。关于北海南部海上平台的此类信息有限。本研究旨在填补这一知识空白，并确定物种组合的组成和丰度如何随深度以及沿离岸梯度变化。利用遥控车辆的检查录像，对北海南部五个海上天然气平台上的物种组合进行了清查。共识别出30个分类单元。物种丰富度的广义相加模型显示与水深存在显著的非线性关系（p = 0.001）：在浅水区丰富度较低，随着深度增加直至15 - 20米，之后丰富度又再次下降。使用多变量方差分析（PERMANOVA），水深（p≤0.001）、群落年龄（p≤0.001）以及离岸距离与群落年龄之间的相互作用（p≤0.001）对物种组合有显著影响。未来的研究应关注其他环境变量对物种组合的影响。
