Novel environments and biological communities created by the large-scale deployment of Marine Renewable Energy Devices (MREDs) have the potential to promote the spread of non-native species (NNS). Knowledge of how community composition resident on MREDs is shaped by geography, local hydrodynamics and the duration of deployment, will clarify how these technologies will interact with natural habitats, including the provision of suitable habitat for NNS. A network of navigation buoys was used to study biofouling communities in areas proposed for MRED deployment. Significant differences in community structure were observed in different geographic areas. A significant reduction in number of taxa present and community wet-weight was observed where buoys were deployed in greater tidal flow rates. However, overall community composition was not significantly different between ‘high’ (>1 ms-1) and ‘low’ (<1 ms-1) flow areas and for buoys deployed for different time durations (1-7 years). These finding have important implications for the longevity of devices and their interaction with natural habitats, including proposed ‘artificial reef’ effects. In total five non-native species were identified on the buoys sampled, supporting the need to monitor MREDs as the industry grows. Hydrodynamic and biotic features of the epibenthic communities were used to predict the presence of the most prevalent NNS, the amphipod Caprella mutica, in addition to other native amphipod species. Caprella mutica presence was found to be significantly affected by increasing flow speed compared with the native amphipod Jassa herdmani. Behavioural flume studies investigating flow-related processes governing the presence of non-native amphipods supported these findings. This study details how the hydrodynamic and biological environments created by MREDs determine their suitability for the establishment of self-sustaining populations, and therefore their dispersal potential for NNS. These findings inform design criteria and management options to minimise the biosecurity risk that these structures will pose as the industry expands.

Thesis. 1975. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Meteorology. / Bibliography: leaves 70-72. / M.S.

Complex nonlinear and chaotic responses have been recently observed in various compliant ocean systems. These systems are characterized by a nonlinear mooring restoring force and a coupled fluid-structure interaction exciting force. A general class of ocean mooring system models is formulated by incorporating a variable mooring configuration and the exact form of the hydrodynamic excitation. The multi-degree of freedom system, subjected to combined parametric and external excitation, is shown to be complex, coupled and strongly nonlinear. Stability analysis by a Liapunov function approach reveals global system attraction which ensures that solutions remain bounded for small excitation. Construction of the system's Poincare map and stability analysis of the map's fixed points correspond to system stability of near resonance periodic orbits. Investigation of nonresonant solutions is done by a local variational approach. Tangent and period doubling bifurcations are identified by both local stability analysis techniques and are further investigated to reveal global bifurcations. Application of Melnikov's method to the perturbed averaged system provides an approximate criterion for the existence of transverse homoclinic orbits resulting in chaotic system dynamics. Further stability analysis of the subharmonic and ultraharmonic solutions reveals a cascade of period doubling which is shown to evolve to a strange attractor. Investigation of the bifurcation criteria obtained reveals a steady state superstructure in the bifurcation set. This superstructure identifies a similar bifurcation pattern of coexisting solutions in the sub, ultra and ultrasubharmonic domains. Within this structure strange attractors appear when a period doubling sequence is infinite and when abrupt changes in the size of an attractor occur near tangent bifurcations. Parametric analysis of system instabilities reveals the influence of the convective inertial force which can not be neglected for large response and the bias induced by the quadratic viscous drag is found to be a controlling mechanism even for moderate sea states. Thus, stability analyses of a nonlinear ocean mooring system by semi-analytical methods reveal the existence of bifurcations identifying complex periodic and aperiodic nonlinear phenomena. The results obtained apply to a variety of nonlinear ocean mooring and towing system configurations. Extensions and applications of this research are discussed. / Graduation date: 1992