Assessing potential impacts of offshore wind development on U.S. marine ecosystems using food web modeling

Submerged sections of offshore wind turbine structures can function as artificial reefs, often enhancing local biodiversity and biomass and altering local marine food webs. We synthesized publicly available data and developed linear inverse models to explore how offshore wind development may alter the local food web structure and function for three sites in the U.S. Atlantic. Comparisons between pre-construction and estimated four years post-construction models suggest a potential shift toward more mature and stable systems, though our results varied across some ecological metrics and sites. Sediment macrofauna had the highest trophic impact across all models, confirming their significant and sustained ecological importance in the region. Bivalves fouling on foundations and scour protections had the highest trophic impact among turbine-associated fauna, emphasizing their potential to alter ecosystem structure and processes following wind farm construction. Although our models were robust to some data inputs, several data insufficiencies were identified, particularly for food web compartments involved in the microbial loop, which limited our predictive power. Our framework illustrates plausible and likely pathways of change to marine food webs in the U.S. Atlantic following offshore windfarm construction and our results can help prioritize ongoing and future monitoring and research efforts across the region.