Biologists in general, and the people who study platform wildlife in particular, often argue over whether a specific habitat feature (in this case an oil platform) actually increases the population of a species or whether it simply acts as a meeting place for creatures that would otherwise gather somewhere else.
Love began to think of ways to investigate whether platforms were aggregating or actually producing more fish. “When you see 150,000 baby bocaccio rockfish at a platform, it looks like a good nursery ground. But if you pull out the platform, would the drifting larvae find another reef to shelter in?”
If yes, then the platform would be superfluous as far as the rockfish are concerned.
Love and his team began looking at ocean currents. A collaborator created a computer model that could reflect prevailing weather patterns and added in the drifting bocaccio larvae. A lot of them hit the platform. Then Love’s team removed the platform from the model and watched the rockfish drift again. They assumed that bocaccio carried inshore would find their usual nursery sites and survive, while those that drifted out to sea—where there are few natural surfaces to provide shelter and food—would die. Over a three-year period, Love’s team concluded that 70 percent of the juveniles would die if the platform were removed.
“This doesn’t mean it’s true for all platforms, all species,” he cautions. “But it lends credence that maybe these platforms are pretty good nursery grounds. And if that’s true, then it’s very hard to argue that platforms are not helping to produce fish.”
— Oil Rigs Are a Refuge in a Dying Sea
