Invasive coral species of the genus Tubastraea have been increasingly recorded in Southwestern Atlantic waters since the 1980s. Their invasion and infestation are mainly related to port and oil exploration activities.
Boukinda, M. L., F. Schoefs, V. Quiniou-Ramus, M. Birades, and R. Garretta
Colonization process of marine growth increasingly arouses the interest of the oil industry because engineering design or reassessment of platforms requires forecasting of biological fouling specific to the area where they are located.
Mussels (Mytilus californianus, M. galloprovincialis) and other organisms sloughed from offshore oil platforms provide a food subsidy to benthic consumers and alter underlying soft bottom habitat by creating hard substrate.
Southwest Research Institute is presently managing a relatively large program in offshore ecology for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Department of the Interior.
Lopez-Bautista, J. M., S. Fredericq, R. L. Chapman, and D. A. Waters
In the north-western Gulf of Mexico, more than 3000 oil and gas platforms are supporting a significant community of marine organisms in an area wherein natural hard substrata are scarce.
Temporal and spatial (depth) patterns of shell growth were studied in the mussel Mytilus edulis in relation to water temperature and potential food availability, at an offshore oil platform, Holly (ARCO), in the Santa Barbara Channel, Californ
Van der Stap, T., J. W. P. Coolen, and H. J. Lindeboom
From the Abstract: "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.
From the Abstract: "As a result of laboratory experiments and studies of the life cycle with both light and electron microscopy, it is suggested that the most likely stages of dispersal from coastal populations to the platforms are the filamentous game
