ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Global Biodiversity Threats
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2025.1650920
This article is part of the Research TopicImpacts of Anchor Scour, Vessel Moorings and Associated Infrastructure on Marine HabitatsView all 5 articles
Anchoring from shipping as a disturbance agent to temperate rocky reef fish: marked shifts in trophic and taxonomic guilds
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
- 2Environmental Futures, University of Wollongong, Australia
- 3NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Marine Ecosystem Unit, Fisheries Research, PO Box 89, Huskisson, New South Wales 2540,, Australia
- 4NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, 480 Weeroona Road Lidcombe, New South Wales 2141, Australia
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Anchoring impacts to marine environments from large, ocean-going ships is increasingly recognised as a global threat to marine biota. To date, no replicated assessment examining anchor disturbance to fish assemblages exists at the scale of ocean-going vessels. Here we aim to fill this important knowledge gap, using the Port Kembla Anchorage in SE Australia as a case study. We predicted that demersal fish on temperate rocky reefs (>30m) exposed to anchoring activities would differ significantly to those that were 'anchor-free'. Using Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) we assessed species and functional groups using a full-subsets generalised additive mixed modelling approach, including fine-scale reef variables as covariates to account for natural spatial variability and to improve estimates. Reefs exposed to anchoring (ie. disturbed) was the most important predictor for the total abundance of fish, with twice as many individuals when compared to undisturbed reefs (anchor-free). Abundance measures were largely driven by the shoaling zooplanktivore; Atypichthys strigatus, with near four-fold increases of this trophic group on anchored reefs. In contrast, the abundance of other taxa including, Meuschenia freycineti and demersal elasmobranchs combined decreased two to three-fold on disturbed reefs. These results indicate anchoring activities can have ecosystem-wide impacts to fish assemblages underscoring the importance of better managing anchoring near ports globally.
Keywords: Global trade, high-tonnage vessels, mesophotic depths, stressors, zooplanktivores, elasmobranchs, Marine animal forests
Received: 20 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Broad, Rees, Ingleton, Morris and Davis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Allison Broad, allisonb@uow.edu.au
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