The 2011 Tohoku Tsunami, Marine Ecosystem Dynamics, and the Re-establishment of Coastal Aquaculture Facilities in Onagawa Bay, Japan

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Temporal variation in environmental conditions and the structure of fish assemblages around an offshore oil platform in the North Sea

Copyright © 2015 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank ICES for providing fish and oceanographic data, OSPAR for providing data for offshore structures in the North Sea, and Imants G. Priede, Alan Jamieson, Jim Mair, Inigo Martinez, Michelle Horsfield, Anne Walls and all the crew members of the Miller platform for invaluable advice and support in conducting this fish biology project. This work was coordinated by Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen and supported by the BP Fellowship in Applied Fisheries Programme.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Potential influence of offshore oil and gas platforms on the feeding ecology of fish assemblages in the North Sea

Acknowledgements. The author thanks OSPAR for providing data for offshore oil and gas structures in the North Sea and Imants G. Priede, Alan Jamieson, Jim Mair, Inigo Martinez, Michelle Horsfield, Anne Walls and all the crew members of BP’s Miller platform and the FRV ‘Scotia’, cruise 0912S, in particular Chief Scientist Finlay Burns, for invaluable advice and support in conducting this fish biology project. This work was coordinated by Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen, and was supported by the BP Fellowship in Applied Fisheries Programme.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fine-scale monitoring of fish movements and multiple environmental parameters around a decommissioned offshore oil platform : A pilot study in the North Sea

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank OSPAR for providing data for offshore structures in the North Sea, and Imants G. Priede (University of Aberdeen), Stewart Chalmers (University of Aberdeen), John Polanski (University of Aberdeen), Thomas O’Donoghue (University of Aberdeen), and Michelle Horsfield (BP), Anne Walls (BP), Peter Evans (BP), Alwyn Mcleary (BP) and all the crew members of the Miller platform for invaluable advice and support in conducting this research project. This work was coordinated by Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen and supported by the BP Fellowship in Applied Fisheries Programme.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Impacts of sea-level rise on an estuarine ecosystem : a case study of the Humber Estuary, UK

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Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the deepest ocean fauna

The Kermadec and Mariana ‘HADES’ expeditions (RV Thomas G. Thompson TN309, and RV Falkor FK141109) were funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF-OCE nos 1130712 and 1140494) and the Schmidt Ocean Institute. S.B.P. was supported by a Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust. The analytical costs were supported by the Total Foundation (France) and the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology, Scotland (MASTS) through a Deep Sea Forum small grant award.Peer reviewedPostprin

Evaluation of Temporal Variability in Surface Chlorophyll-a Concentration Estimated by GCOM-C/SGLI in Onagawa Bay

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In situ observations of trophic behaviour and locomotion of Princaxelia amphipods (Crustacea, Pardaliscidae) at hadal depths in four West Pacific Trenches

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Elevated fish densities extend kilometres from oil and gas platforms

Thousands of offshore oil and gas platforms have been installed throughout the world’s oceans and more structures are being installed as part of the transition to renewable energy. These structures increase the availability of ecological niches by providing hard substrate in midwater and complex 3D habitat on the seafloor. This can lead to ‘hotspots’ of biodiversity, or increased densities of flora and fauna, which potentially spill over into the local area. However, the distances over which these higher densities extend (the ‘range of influence’) can be highly variable. Fish aggregate at such structures, but the range of influence and any implications for wider fish populations, are unclear. We investigated the relationship between fish and platform areal densities using high resolution fisheries acoustic data. Data were collected in the waters surrounding the vessel exclusions zones around 16 oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, and throughout the wider area. We estimated densities of schooling fish using echo-integration, and densities of non-schooling fish using echo-counting. At 10 platforms, non-schooling fish densities were elevated near the platform relative to background levels in the equivalent wider area. The range of influence, defined here as the range to which fish densities were elevated above background, varied from 0.8 to 23 km. In areas of high platform density, fish schools were encountered more often, and non-schooling fish densities were higher, when controlling for other sources of environmental variation. This is the first time such long-range effects have been identified; previously, ranges of influence have been reported in the order of just 10s-100s of metres. These findings suggest that the environmental impact of these structures may extend further than previously thought, which may be relevant in the context of upcoming management decisions around the decommissioning of these structures

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Benthic Macrofaunal Communities in Relation to the Recovery of Coastal Aquaculture Operations Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami wiped out over 1200 shellfish and ascidian culture long-lines and ∼120 salmon farm cages that comprised the entire aquaculture installations in Onagawa Bay, Japan, and severely altered the associated ecosystem. A year later, we launched a coordinated monitoring program to measure the extent of the damage caused by the disaster and monitor the change in the state of the marine ecosystem. As part of this effort, we conducted multi-seasonal sampling to characterize spatio-temporal variation in benthic macrofaunal community and a range of environmental parameters across Onagawa Bay between March 2012 and January 2018. The 492 total macrofaunal species recorded included Polychaeta (38.8%), Bivalvia (13.2%), Amphipoda (10.8%), Decapoda (9.6%), Gastropoda (9.3%), and Echinodermata (4.3%). At the outermost reference site, macrofaunal abundance, biomass, and species diversity were all consistently high throughout the study period. Inside Onagawa Bay, macrofauna metrics increased steadily from the lowest values at the beginning of the study to the highest over time. During the same period, the spatial extent of aquaculture facilities for long-lines and fish cages recovered steadily to within 60.8% and 74.8% of the original state, respectively. The significant variables identified by multivariate analysis to explain spatio-temporal variability in benthic macrofaunal communities were: (1) proximity to the nearest aquaculture facilities; (2) wind fetch length (exposure); (3) sediment grain size; and (4) the total area of aquaculture facilities. This study suggests that coastal aquaculture operations may strongly influence the occurrence and distribution of benthic macrofaunal communities and thereby influence the recovery of seafloor biota at ecosystem scales following a catastrophic natural disaster