Short-term testing of antifouling surfaces: the importance of colour

Abstract

Data from short-term biofouling assays are frequently used to evaluate the performance of antifouling (AF) coatings. There are a large number of factors, however, that may influence community development. One such factor is colour. The hypothesis was that differences in colour may impact the short-term development of a biofouling community and therefore bias the results. An experiment was designed to investigate the effect of black and white substrata on settlement of fouling organisms in the field. Both Ulva sp. and Spirorbis sp. had significantly higher settlement on black surfaces. This result emphasises the importance of considering colour and other factors when undertaking short-term testing of AF coatings.

Keywords:

• Ulva
• Spirorbis
• antifouling
• color
• biofouling
• short term bioassays

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research under the direction of Dr Stephen McElvany and Dr Paul Armistead (Grant Nos. N00014-02-1-0216 and N00014-05-1-0302) and the Center for Nanoscale Technology at North Dakota State University.