Fine-scale proximity to offshore wind turbine foundations increases biomass of benthic fish species

Abstract Offshore wind turbine fixed-bottom foundations provide artificial hard substrate through the water column that encourages marine flora and fauna to colonise and aggregate around the introduced structures, a well-documented phenomenon known as the ‘artificial reef effect’. The cumulative impact thousands of turbine foundations at multiple offshore sites have on local and regional marine species populations and communities is not fully understood. Knowledge of the extent and magnitude of the reefing effect at a fine scale (single turbines) is a prerequisite to making broader-scale (single or multiple wind farms) predictions of population level and ecosystem changes caused by presence of offshore wind farms. The influence of fine-scale distance (