Nina Rothe

After finishing school in Germany, I pursued my undergraduate degree in marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University. During my senior year, I got involved in two projects both of which introduced me to the complex subject of marine ecology. I took on a marine laboratory internship under Dr. Richard Grigg and his PhD student Sam Kahng at the University of Hawaii assisting them in their studies of a highly invasive alien octocoral and its ecological impact in Hawaiian Waters. I also participated in a Senior Science Practicum involving sediment analysis under Dr. Craig Smith.

However, my interest in deep sea ecology was sparked through a scientific cruise and a dive in the submersible PISCES IV off O’ahu, Hawaii as part of my honors research under Dr. Eric Vetter. It resulted in a paper on megafaunal abundance and distribution in a submarine canyon off O’ahu, Hawaii.

After completing my B.S. degree in 2004, I started my PhD under the supervision of Dr. David Billett, Dr. Brian Bett, Dr. Ian Hudson, and Prof. Paul Tyler at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton in October 2005.

Research Interests

The general aim of my PhD project is to study recolonization and succession processes in benthic communities on the continental slope following deep-water oil drilling. I plan to collect pre-drilling data in order to assess the impact of anthropogenic perturbations against baseline knowledge of the environment prior to disturbance.

Utilizing commercial Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) will allow me to determine experimentally: 1) the rate at which sediment communities on the continental slope recover from physical impacts and 2) the nature of the changes in community structure over time. Collaboration with the oil and gas industry through the SERPENT project provides us with the opportunity to accurately monitor the timing and scope of the disturbance as well as to examine the site directly after the disturbance event. Furthermore, it allows us to revisit the site over a period of time to monitor recovery processes and to study the dynamics of recolonization following a major anthropogenic disturbance.

Different locations including the deep-water oil and gas provinces along the continental slope off the West Coast of Shetland, off Norway (Barents Sea) and Angola are proposed to serve as experimental sites. The goal is to examine the factors that control recolonization and succession rates, which are thought to differ between locations resulting in ecosystems that rarely resemble their previous state.

These factors include the topography of the area, the hydrodynamic regime as well as water depth and sediment type. Subsequent comparisons between these areas will enable us to better understand what factors are most important in the recovery of an ecosystem and how these processes depend on and change with the physical and biological properties of each specific locality. This might then allow us to assess the “vulnerability” of an ecosystem to large-scale disturbances caused by the smothering effects of drill cutting spoil and to estimate the ability of communities to recover from such impact.