Baseline Environmental data collection

1. Baseline Environmental data collection Solwara 1 Case Study

2. Industry-Academic Partnership Seafloor Production System Images courtesy of Nautilus Minerals

3. Potential Impacts, Benthic Ecosystems Bold: Baseline data collected as part of the Duke-Nautilus Minerals partnership Van Dover, in review, EMBS

4. Potential Impacts, Benthic Ecosystems Bold: Baseline data collected as part of the Duke-Nautilus Minerals partnership Van Dover, in review, EMBS

5. Setting Solwara 1 Project MANUS BASIN, PNG Solwara 1: Extraction site South Su: Reference Area* *company-designated, with scientific input; to be untouched by mining Nautilus Minerals

6. Setting: Solwara 1Active and Inactive Active Inactive Images courtesy Nautilus Minerals

7. South Su Mussels and Tubeworms Images courtesy Nautilus Minerals

8. Trophic Relationships Motivations: Understanding energy sources (sulfide oxidation vs methane oxidation) Understanding the role of chemoautotrophic production in nutrition of peripheral fauna Understanding trophic interactions Approach: C, N, S isotopic composition of animal tissues

9. Trophic Relationships Active sulfides Inactive sulfides • Taxa at inactive sites consume chemosynthetically derived organic material Erickson et al 2009

10. Community Structure Objectives • Understand spatial variation (patch-mound-site) • Validation of South Su as a Reserve • Community structure comparisons • Inactive • Active • 3 assemblages (hairy snail, black snail, barnacle) • Species richness (univariate statistics) • Species composition • Species-abundance relationships (multivariate statistics)

11. Active Sites: Sampling 0.25 m2 Suction – Scoop – Suction

12. Species Richness (species-effort curves) Inactive Sites South Su Solwara 1 Collins et al. 2012 Images courtesy Nautilus Minerals

13. Active Sites If Eo Indicator Habitats Al IF Ifremeria EoEochionelasmus Al Alviniconcha Nautilus Minerals

14. Active Sites: Sampling Scheme Mound 1 Nested Sampling NB:temporal component planned image-based rather than sample-based Mound 2 low-T chemical data not collected Mound 3 Collins et al. 2012

15. Active Sites: Species Richness Overall Solwara 1 South Su Collins et al. 2012

16. Active Sites: Multivariate Comparisons Solwara 1 South Su Community Structure species-abundance Collins et al. 2012

17. Connectivity Studies 2000 km 1100 km

18. Connectivity Studies Scale bars = 1 cm Illustrations by Karen Jacobsen

19. Connectivity Studies

20. Lessons Learned • Effort should be led by high-resolution geo-referenced habitat mapping and imaging (ideally with an AUV) • Samples for trophic studies, community structure, and connectivity should be collected on the same expedition and be targeted based on habitat maps • Non-trivial, labor intensive • Requires careful sample preservation, logging, and coding

21. Lessons Learned • Replicate sampling, species-effort curves, and multivariate analyses of community structure (species-abundance matrices) are robust methods for establishing baselines and for comparing sites • Patch and mound levels of detail proved not to be critical for community structure comparisons or for connectivity studies in the Solwara 1 case (reduces effort considerably); post hoc knowledge • Temporal studies should be built into baseline collection plans • Oceanographic models for Lagrangian transport would be extremely useful • Shore-based effort is of long duration in an academic setting; work is done by undergraduate and graduate students • Advantage is that true costs are heavily subsidized by University resources (faculty salary, student stipends and tuition, instrumentation, other)