Shipwrecks on the Dutch Continental Shelf as Artificial Reefs

Leewis, R. J.; Moorsel, Godfried Van; Waardenburg, H. W.

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-4215-1_25

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The wrecks in the German Bight serve as habitats for an abundant and diverse fauna and are, thus, similar to wrecks from the Atlantic coast of North America (Stephan and Lindquist, 1989;Arena et al, 2007) and from waters of the Netherlands and Belgium (Leewis et al, 2000;Massin et al, 2002;Zintzen et al, 2008b). Some of the very abundant taxa are obligatorily associated with hard bottom (e.g.…”

Section: Wrecksmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The change in the faunal composition, however, will take place in a marine area which already has undergone anthropogenic structural changes: decades before the establishment of any wind-power foundations thousands of shipwrecks in wide areas of the North Sea and some oil and gas-rigs in the central North Sea have provided substantial amounts of artificial hard substrata habitats on the seafloor (Kingsbury, 1981;Leewis et al, 2000;Zintzen et al, 2008b;Krone and Schröder, 2011). Numerous studies from different areas globally have shown that wrecks and offshore platforms are permanently colonized by typical hard bottom faunal communities and are frequented by such species foraging on such fouling (Wolfson et al, 1979;Stephan and Lindquist, 1989;Page et al, 1999;Jørgensen et al, 2002;Løkkeborg et al, 2002;Arena et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most studies in the North Sea in which the biota on artificial structures have systematically been quantified, however, focused on biofouling communities (Forteath et al, 1982;Whomersley and Picken, 2003;Zintzen et al, 2006;Joschko et al, 2008;Wilhelmsson and Malm, 2008;Zintzen et al, 2008a;Hiscock et al, 2010;Zintzen and Massin, 2010;Krone et al, 2013) or selected megafauna species (Reubens et al, 2011). To date, there are only semi-quantitative records of mobile crustaceans and fish species often abounding at shipwrecks and wind-power foundations in the North Sea (Hiscock, 1980;Leewis et al, 2000;Massin et al, 2002;Bouma and Lengkeek, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mobile demersal megafauna at artificial structures in the German Bight – Likely effects of offshore wind farm development

Krone

Gutow

Brey

et al. 2013

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. Within the next few decades, large underwater structures of thousands of wind turbines in the northern European shelf seas will substantially increase the amount of habitat available for mobile demersal megafauna. As a first indication of the possible effects of this large scale habitat creation on faunal stocks settling on hard substrata, we compared selected taxa of the mobile demersal megafauna (decapods and fish) associated with the foundation of an offshore research platform (a wind-power foundation equivalent) with those of five shipwrecks and different areas of soft bottoms in the southern German Bight, North Sea. When comparing the amount of approximately 5000 planned wind-power foundations (covering 5.1 Â 10 6 m 2 of bottom area) with the existing number of at least 1000 shipwrecks (covering 1.2 Â 10 6 m 2 of bottom area), it becomes clear that the southern North Sea will provide about 4.3 times more available artificial hard substratum habitats than currently available. With regard to the fauna found on shipwrecks, on soft substrata and on the investigated wind-power foundation, we predict that the amount of added hard substrata will allow the stocks of substrata-limited mobile demersal hard bottom species to increase by 25e165% in that area. The fauna found at the offshore platform foundations is very similar to that at shipwrecks. Megafauna abundances at the foundations, however, are lower compared to those at the highly fractured wrecks and are irregularly scattered over the foundations. The upper regions of the platform construction (5 and 15 m depth) were only sparsely colonized by mobile fauna, the anchorages, however, more densely. The faunal assemblages from the shipwrecks and the foundations, respectively, as well as from the soft bottoms clearly differed from each other. We predict that new wind-power foundations will support the spread of hard bottom fauna into soft bottom areas with low wreck densities.

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Section: Wrecksmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mobile demersal megafauna at artificial structures in the German Bight – Likely effects of offshore wind farm development

Krone

Gutow

Brey

et al. 2013

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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“…Technical problems are certainly the main reason why the fauna of shipwrecks have scarcely been studied (Massin et al, 2002). This fauna has been prospected along the Dutch Continental Shelf (Leewis et al, 2000) and on a single shipwreck near the Isle of Lundy (Bristol Channel, England;Hiscock, 1980) but this has never been done for the BCS. This paper presents the first results of a detailed study aiming to understand the possible role of such structures in the biological diversity of the Southern Bight of the North Sea.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…communication). Moreover, it has been recently estimated that 10 000 wrecks lie in the Dutch sector of the North Sea (Leewis et al, 2000). Theses structures represent substrata available for the colonization of subtidal sessile epibenthic communities in Belgian coastal waters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epifaunal Inventory of Two Shipwrecks from the Belgian Continental Shelf

et al. 2006

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Shipwrecks are almost the only subtidal substrata available for epifaunal colonization along the Belgian coastal waters and have never been scientifically prospected up to now. Two shipwrecks have been investigated during the summers of 2001 and 2002. De-visu observations and examination of 14 scraped surfaces of 0.0625 m 2 allowed the identification of a total of 121 macrofauna species. Species richness cumulative curves provide an estimated number of 150-280 species. Both shipwrecks are dominated by Cnidarians. The tube-dwelling amphipod Jassa herdmani was also particularly abundant. Striking differences were observed between shipwrecks. Different faunal assemblages were observed on vertical and horizontal surfaces. Species richness could not been correlated with diversity indices. Samples with high species diversity were observed when the Hydrozoan Tubularia indivisa was dominant. On the contrary, when the Anthozoan Metridium senile was dominant, samples showed a very low species richness. Finally, the Poriferan Dysidea fragilis has to be considered as a new species for the Belgian fauna.

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Offshore platforms as novel ecosystems: A case study from Australia’s Northwest Shelf

Elden

Meeuwig

Hobbs

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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The decommissioning of offshore oil and gas platforms typically involves removing some or all of the associated infrastructure and the consequent destruction of the associated marine ecosystem that has developed over decades. There is increasing evidence of the important ecological role played by offshore platforms. Concepts such as novel ecosystems allow stakeholders to consider the ecological role played by each platform in the decommissioning process. This study focused on the Wandoo field in Northwest Australia as a case study for the application of the novel ecosystem concept to the decommissioning of offshore platforms. Stereo‐baited remote underwater video systems were used to assess the habitat composition and fish communities at Wandoo, as well as two control sites: a sandy one that resembled the Wandoo site pre‐installation, and one characterized by a natural reef as a control for natural hard substrate and vertical relief. We found denser macrobenthos habitat at the Wandoo site than at either of the control sites, which we attributed to the exclusion of seabed trawling around the Wandoo infrastructure. We also found that the demersal and pelagic taxonomic assemblages at Wandoo more closely resemble those at a natural reef than those which would likely have been present pre‐installation, but these assemblages are still unique in a regional context. The demersal assemblage is characterized by reef‐associated species with higher diversity than those at the sand control and natural reef control sites, with the pelagic community characterized by species associated with oil platforms in other regions. These findings suggest that a novel ecosystem has emerged in the Wandoo field. It is likely that many of the novel qualities of this ecosystem would be lost under decommissioning scenarios that involve partial or complete removal. This study provides an example for classifying offshore platforms as novel ecosystems.

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Shipwrecks on the Dutch Continental Shelf as Artificial Reefs

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

Mobile demersal megafauna at artificial structures in the German Bight – Likely effects of offshore wind farm development

Mobile demersal megafauna at artificial structures in the German Bight – Likely effects of offshore wind farm development

Epifaunal Inventory of Two Shipwrecks from the Belgian Continental Shelf

Offshore platforms as novel ecosystems: A case study from Australia’s Northwest Shelf

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