The Impacts of Offshore Oil Exploration and Development on Macrobenthos Community：A Case Study in Chengdao Oil Field

Abstract

Univariate and multivariate methods were used to study macrobenthos collected in October 2012 from the area around a new built offshore oil platform. The univariate parameters and community structure of benthic communities were related to environmental variables. Samples were taken with a 0.1 m² Van Veen grab (33×30 ×15 cm) at each station from 15 sampling stations. The mean values of species number, abundance and species diversity (H’) were 25 species/grab, 104 animals/grab and 3.12/grab, respectively. A total of 142 species was recorded. Total petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metal were strongly positively related to species number, abundance and species diversity, suggesting that petroleum hydrocarbons have harmful effects on macrobenthic communities. The BIO-ENV analyses for all stations identified COD, heavy metal and petroleum hydrocarbons as the major environmental variables influencing the infaunal patterns. However, separate analyses for two groups produced stronger correlations and different best-correlated environmental variable combinations.