During an online seminar on offshore wind hosted by The Nature Conservancy on Thursday, experts discussed existing science on the turbines’ impact on fish and the need for more research as wind projects expand into New England waters.

TNC’s discussion was part of an ongoing series on offshore wind. Past presentations have covered common myths about wind and the turbines’ impact on birds.

Before the talk began, TNC offshore wind policy manager Tricia Jedele acknowledged that the presidential election has raised uncertainty about offshore wind’s future.

“The Nature Conservancy is not wavering in its conviction that offshore wind will continue to be a must-have energy resource, and that we must continue to support the responsible siting and construction of offshore wind projects,” Jedele said, before introducing the discussion’s speakers.

Annie Murphy, a biogeochemist and principal scientist at Newport, R.I.-based INSPIRE Environmental, spoke largely about the artificial reefs that wind turbines installed on the ocean floor can create.

INSPIRE studies and analyzes how the seafloor is impacted by natural and human-made events, and is a part of the Venterra Group, a London-based offshore wind company.

Murphy said turbines change the ecosystem in the area where they are built. Some scientific literature suggests, on the one hand, that it could promote some invasive, non-native species, and on the other, that the reefs could become habitat for local organisms.

Showing video footage from test turbines in the southern United States, Murphy pointed to the diversity of species living around and on the structure the project created in the water.

Fish swam around the turbine’s base, which was covered in bivalves and algae.

Murphy noted that some projects are considering purposely using materials around the base of turbines to mimic more natural habitats and encourage sea life to move in.

“This habitat conversion, in some instances, can be viewed as positive. Sometimes it can be viewed as negative,” Murphy said. “It’s really a matter of perspective.”

For example, she said, a fish like Atlantic cod may benefit from the structure, while for a clam, the new habitat might not be as beneficial.

“This is a new venue; we’ve never installed offshore wind in this area,” she said, referring to offshore projects in the waters off New England, “so it’s important that we do collect monitoring data post-construction.”

Brendan Runde, a marine scientist for The Nature Conservancy in Virginia, discussed his ongoing research “to evaluate the behavioral responses of fish and invertebrates to construction noise.”

Runde and his team tagged black sea bass to track how their behavior may or may not be affected by the sound of pile-driving during turbine construction at a Virginia test site.

He said he saw some fish leave the area during construction phases, but others didn’t, although he cautioned that correlation doesn’t equal causation. Data from the study is still being analyzed and will likely be published next year, he said.

Although the possibility of fish leaving an area because of the noise is a “sublethal” result, Runde said it was still important to study whether results show it’s actually happening.

“It’s all of our responsibilities as citizens and my responsibility as a scientist and a conservationist to work toward a better understanding of how human activities influence individual and population level responses of these animals, because they are resources,” Runde said. “Better science leads to better construction practices, and better science leads to more appropriate mitigation where mitigation is necessary.”

The next TNC webinar is scheduled for Dec. 5 and will discuss how data, spacial tools, and policy impact the design of offshore wind projects.