Craig M Robertson

Bangor University · School of Ocean Sciences

Anthropogenic debris has been reported in all studied marine environments, including the deepest parts of the sea. Finding areas of accumulation and methods of transport for debris are important to determine potential impacts on marine life. This study analyzed both sediment cores and Remotely Operated Vehicle video to determine the density and dis...

Marine benthic habitats in continental shelf regions are increasingly impacted by hypoxia caused by the combination of eutrophication and climate warming. Many regions that have the potential for hypoxic conditions are being fished by mobile bottom-contacting fishing gears. The combined effects of trawling and hypoxia may be synergistic and disprop...

Topographic and hydrodynamic complexity in submarine canyons promotes steep gradients in food availability and geophysical parameters which affect ecological assemblages and beta diversity. While habitat heterogeneity in submarine canyons is known to support diverse and abundant megafaunal communities, due to difficulty in sampling little is known...

Submarine canyons are often morphologically complex features in the deep sea contributing to habitat heterogeneity. In addition, they act as major conduits of organic matter from the shallow productive shelf to the food deprived deep-sea, promoting gradients in food resources and areas of sediment resuspension and deposition. This study focuses on...

Submarine canyons are often hotspots of biomass due to enhanced productivity and funneling of organic matter of marine and terrestrial origin. However, most deep-sea canyons remain poorly studied in terms of their role as conduits of terrestrial and marine particles. A multi-tracer geochemical investigation of particles collected yearlong by a sedi...

Bottom-trawl fisheries are wide-spread and have large effects on benthic ecosystems.We investigate the effect of scallop dredging on sand and otter trawling on mud by measuring changes in the infaunal community and the biogeochemical processes which they mediate. We hypothesize that changes in biogeochemistry due to fishing will be larger in mud wh...

Hydrocarbon seeps support distinct benthic communities capable of tolerating extreme environmental conditions and utilizing reduced chemical compounds for nutrition. In recent years, several locations of methane seepage have been mapped along the U.S. Atlantic continental slope. In 2012 and 2013, two newly discovered seeps were investigated in this...

Submarine canyons are complex systems, acting as major conduits of organic matter along continental shelves and promoting gradients in food resources, turbidity flows, habitat heterogeneity, and areas of sediment resuspension and deposition. In the western North Atlantic, a large multidisciplinary program was conducted in two major Mid-Atlantic Bi...

Astomonema is a nematode genus belonging to the family Astomonematinae, characterized by abundant endosymbiotic chemo-autotrophic bacteria located within the body. Their dependence on these prokaryote symbionts as an energy source is obvious since these nematodes lack a mouth and their pharynx is vestigial, precluding food uptake via the mouth. Unt...

The Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) is a well-studied region of the U.S. East coast continental margin, rich in submarine canyons. Baltimore and Norfolk canyons were studied during the multidisciplinary Atlantic Deepwater Canyons project through funding from BOEM, NOAA and USGS. Benthic infaunal community structure, standing stock, species richness and di...

Submarine canyons are often conduits for sediment transport, channeling organic matter from the continental shelf to the deep ocean, and providing heterogeneous environments for communities to thrive. While they are globally distributed along continental margins, minimal information is available on the influence of canyon processes on deep-sea bent...