The effect of offshore windfarms on the distribution, behaviour, and abundance of fish

对海鸟种群影响的不确定性仍然是英国海上风能开发的一个关键同意问题，影响了为实现英国能源安全战略的目标而增加海上风电场部署的进展。海鸟会受到碰撞、迁徙地点的迁移以及对迁徙路线或常规飞行路线的障碍影响。这些影响的累积影响、其背后的潜在因果关系以及随着时间的推移而习惯化的程度，目前尚不清楚。英国自然环境研究委员会和皇家地产的离岸风证据和变化计划资助的一个新项目正在调查这些影响，该项目名为Ecowings。该项目旨在改变现有的关于离岸风对关键海鸟物种累积影响的证据基础，重点是英国北海的一个地区，关键物种包括黑腿猫尾鸟、普通海雀、斑嘴鸟和大西洋海雀。这位博士将通过研究这些动物的捕食性鱼类来为该项目做出贡献。众所周知，养殖场(OWF)与其他人造海洋结构物(MMS)一样，提供了三维栖息地，至少聚集了鱼类和其他海洋生物，在一些MMS中，已被证明可以提高产量。与大多数MMS一样，我们对鱼类在远离结构的地方分布的程度知之甚少，对以OWF为代表的MMS网络如何影响网络内外的行为和丰富程度也知之甚少。该项目旨在通过无人水面航行器(USVs)和自主水下航行器(AUV)等新型平台进行独特的测量，研究OWF内和周围的鱼类分布情况。这些测量将与航空调查中的海鸟调查同时进行。将提供ECOWINGS数据集，为了将学生身份与项目区分开来，学生将专注于推导鱼群回声轨迹描述符的度量，以了解对海鸟分布的潜在影响。这些指标分为位置(学校深度、纬度、经度、日期和时间)、形态(学校高度、宽度、面积、周长、粗糙度)、能量(声强，与密度、变异性、质心成正比)和学校环境(学校下的最小和最大深度、学校群斑块大小)。它们被用来区分鱼群，但这里将用来研究同类鱼群的特征是如何受到捕食者遭遇的影响的。从海面未受干扰的鱼群的AUV获得的数据集将特别适用于[海鸟]捕食者[鱼类]猎物相互作用的研究，特别是对黑腿猫尾等水面食性海鸟的研究。

Uncertainty around impacts on seabird populations remains a key consenting issue for offshore wind development in the UK, affecting progress towards the increase in deployment of offshore windfarms needed to meet the targets of the British Energy Security Strategy. Seabirds are impacted through collisions, displacement from feeding grounds, and barrier effects on migratory routes or regular flight paths. The cumulative effects of these impacts, the underlying causal relationships behind them, and the extent of habituation over time, are currently not well understood. These effects are being investigated by a new project, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and The Crown Estate's Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme, called Ecowings. The project aims to transform the existing evidence base on the cumulative effects of offshore wind on key seabird species, focussing on a region of the UK North Sea, with key species including black-legged kittiwake, common guillemot, razorbill, and Atlantic puffin. This PhD will contribute to that project by studying the fish prey of these animals. OW farms (OWF), in common with other man-made marine structures (MMS), are known to provide three-dimensional habitat, which at the very least aggregates fish and other marine life, and in some MMS, has been shown to enhance production. As is the case with most MMS, we know little about the extent to which fish distribute themselves at distance from the structure, and less about how MMS networks, typified by OWF, can influence behaviour, and abundance in and outside the network. This project aims to examine the distributions of fish in and around OWF, making unique measurements with novel platforms such as Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). These measurements will be taken concurrently with seabird surveys from aerial surveys. The ECOWINGS datasets will be made available and, to distinguish the studentship from the project, the student will focus on deriving metrics of fish school echotrace descriptors to understand potential impacts on seabird distributions. These metrics are classed as positional (school depth, latitude, longitude, date, and time), morphometric (school height, width, area, perimeter, roughness), energetic (acoustic intensity, which is proportional to density, its variability, centre of mass), and school environment (minimum and maximum depth under the school, school cluster patch size). These have been used to distinguish fish schools, but here will be used to examine how the characteristics of schools of the same species are affected by predator encounters. The datasets derived from the AUV of undisturbed fish schools at the surface will be particularly pertinent for studies of [seabird] predator [fish] prey interactions, particularly for surface-feeding seabirds such as black-legged kittiwakes.