Waish and Guida: Fish and macro-invertebrate assemblages near wind energy areas 
441 
Table 2 
Percent frequency of occurrence (PFO) and percent contribution of average proportions and average individual 
weights per station to the first 2 dimensions of correspondence analysis (CA1 and CA2) for fish and macroinver¬ 
tebrate taxa that had at least a 10% frequency of occurrence in beam trawl samples collected in the vicinity of 
wind energy areas on the northeast U.S. continental shelf in the spring of 2014. For the ordination plot of the 
analysis, see Figure 4. 
Percent contribution of CA1 and CA2 
Classification 
Taxon 
PFO 
Average proportion 
of taxon per station 
Average individual 
weight per station 
Porifera 
Porifera 
19.0 
52.1926 
Ctenophora 
Ctenophora 
19.0 
0.2471 
Polychaeta 
Polychaeta 
13.8 
0.1387 
0.0804 
Mollusca 
Gastropoda 
55.2 
2.4551 
0.0425 
Pleurobranchomorpha 
70.7 
2.2524 
0.0036 
Bivalvia 
39.7 
6.5778 
0.0838 
Placopecten magellanicus 
17.2 
0.3847 
0.1179 
Crustacea 
Peracarida 
29.3 
0.4728 
0.0140 
Caridea 
100.0 
11.1031 
0.0049 
Pehaeus setiferus 
10.3 
0.5125 
0.0332 
Pagurus spp. 
46.6 
2.1334 
0.0332 
Brachyura 
37.9 
1.3297 
11.8286 
Echinodermata 
Echinarachnius parma 
58.6 
5.7585 
0.0084 
Asteriidae 
10.3 
0.0967 
0.0987 
Pelagic fish 
Merluccius bilinearis 
24.1 
0.3033 
0.0032 
Demersal fish 
Leucoraja spp. 
41.4 
27.4802 
37.5870 
Urophycis chuss 
25.9 
0.4356 
0.0004 
Urophycis regia 
32.8 
25.7295 
0.1852 
Prionotus spp. 
24.1 
4.6438 
0.0342 
Centropristis striata 
15.5 
0.8081 
0.1016 
Ammodytes spp. 
25.9 
0.0737 
0.0147 
Gobiidae 
20.7 
0.1470 
0.0194 
Scophthalmus aquosus 
17.2 
0.2820 
0.6746 
Etropus spp. 
60.3 
3.4550 
0.0174 
coded as a categorical variable, was also used as a co¬ 
variable to compensate for the difference among trawl 
nets used for the bottom trawl collections. For each anal¬ 
ysis, forward selection of the explanatory variables and 
analysis of variance (R Core Team, 2015) were used to 
determine which explanatory variables and dimensions 
were aligned with groups of stations and were related to 
the fish and macro-invertebrate assemblages. 
Eleven taxa had at least a 5% frequency of occur¬ 
rence in collections made with the 2 types of gears and 
the average individual weight per station was analyzed 
with R (R Core Team, 2015) to determine whether the 
gears caught significantly different sizes for individual 
weight. A difference in individual weight among collec¬ 
tions, by gear type, was considered significant at Bon- 
ferroni corrected P-values of <0.0045. 
Results 
Beam trawl samples were dominated by a variety of 
benthic organisms; the top 5 taxa determined on the 
basis of their average proportion per station were ea- 
ridean shrimp, common sand dollar ( Echinarachnius 
parma), Leucoraja spp., poriferan sponges, and bi¬ 
valves (Suppl. Table) (online only). Demersal and pe¬ 
lagic fish dominated bottom trawl samples; the top 5 
were Leucoraja spp., spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias), 
Atlantic herring ( Clupea harengus ), haddock (Mel a no¬ 
gram mus aeglefinus ), and Peprilus spp. (Suppl. Table) 
(online only). 
Comparison of assemblages by gear type 
The analyses for comparison by gear type indicated 
that the beam and bottom trawl sampled different fish 
and macro-invertebrate communities. The beam trawl 
caught significantly smaller individuals, by weight, 
than the bottom trawl for 6 of the 11 taxa that were 
tested (Table 1; Fig. 2). The collection of significantly 
smaller individuals of 6 fish species, Leucoraja spp., 
silver hake ( Merluccius bilinearis), longhorn scul- 
pin ( Myoxocephalus octodecemspinosus ), windowpane 
(Scophthalmus aquosus), red hake ( Urophycis chuss), 
and ocean pout ( Zoarces americanus), indicated that 
the beam trawl was more efficient than the bottom 
