Ecological evaluation on the biomass of macrobenthic communities observed from a planned offshore wind farm area, west coast of Korea

초록

We analyzed the preliminary survey data (2014−2016) of macrobenthic community biomass (n = 112) from the wind farm area located in the southern part of the west coast of Korea and compared this data with data from the entire west coast (n = 369; 2006−2008). Modal classes from frequency distributions were 6 times higher in the latter (5 vs. 32 g/m2). The mean and median values of the latter were 1.3 and 1.7 times higher (mean, 20.7 vs. 27.8 g/m2; median, 17.1 vs. 29.5 g/m2), and the maximum value was 3.4 times higher. Mood’s median test showed significant difference at p-value = 0.01. We estimated the biomass-to-depth relationships from each data set by using Akaike Information Criterion and regarded the non-overlap of the 95% confidence intervals as indicating significant difference. The biomass was different from a 10 m depth below, and 3 times higher in the west coast at around 20 m compared with the maximum depth of the wind farm area. A local event of catastrophic sedimentation ranging from 1 to 2 m was observed in the wind farm during winter surveys. This could be a probable source of the lower biomass, but information on biomass seasonality and a natural experimental approach seem to be needed for the conduct of further studies. This study is meaningful in that it provided the background to assess future changes by understanding the lower level of benthic productivity in the area. We expect this study will contribute to the preparation of measures that can remove or mitigate the source of the lower biomass and improve the productivity of fishery resources in the area. © 2019, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

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