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The Influence Of River Discharge On Fishes And Invertebrates Associated With Small Oil And Gas Platforms In Nearshore Louisiana, David Bradley Reeves

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The nearshore region off Louisiana’s coast is one of the most productive areas in the United States. Nutrient-rich discharge from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers forms the base of this productivity, but it also contributes to the annual formation of a large hypoxic zone (DO < 2.0 mg l^-1). This region contains >900 oil and gas platforms (platforms) that are de facto artificial reefs and support fish and invertebrate communities. In this dissertation, I examined how select platform-associated fishes and invertebrates responded to river-driven productivity and hypoxia. Settlement plates were used to compare barnacle production at depths of 2 and 7-m along …