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Press Room Huntsman Marine research expand possible options for oil spill clean-up response in Atlantic Canadian waters St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – February 18, 2026 Canada has vast ocean space with high levels of offshore oil production and transportation activities but few options to mitigate the impacts associated with an oil spill within our coastal waters. Surface collecting agents (also called herding agents or herders) may assist in removing spilled oil by controlling its spread across the water surface to facilitate mechanical removal or aid in situ burning operations. Strategic application of herders are also able to provide short-term protection of sensitive areas thereby decreasing detrimental environmental impacts. Two surface collecting agents are currently listed and approved for potential use in the United States: Siltech OP-40 and ThickSlick 6535. Herder toxicity data is scarce and mostly focused on regulatory toxicity testing with standard species. It is urgent to assess potential adverse effects of herders on more geographically representative species to determine the level of ecological risks that may be associated with herding agent use. “We wanted to investigate the acute toxic effects of Siltech and ThickSlick herders on commercially important species in Atlantic Canada, including the vulnerable early life stages of green sea urchin, American lobster, Atlantic cod and lumpfish,” explained Dr. Davide Asnicar, Huntsman Marine Post-Doctoral Fellow and lead author on a publication in the international peer-reviewed journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry that describes the study results. All species specific toxicity tests were completed at The Huntsman Marine Science Centre laboratory located in St. Andrews, NB (Canada) under conditions that met the specific requirements for the species and life stages. Test media samples were shipped to the Danish Centre for Environment and Energy at Aarhus University (Roskilde, Denmark) for chemical analysis. “We have tremendous staff and facility capacity at Huntsman Marine to complete professional toxicology testing across a wide array of ocean species and often most vulnerable early life stages,” added Asnicar. All four test species have adult life stages that reside near or on the seabed well out of harms way from the effects of a surface oil spill or possible presence of chemical herders. However, these species also have early life stages (gametes, embryos and larvae) that develop in the water column where they are more likely to be impacted by an oil spill and ongoing mitigation operations when seasonally present. The four species also cover several animal groups and trophic levels with the early life stages being present across all seasons of the year. Green sea urchins reside on the ocean floor and are harvested in Atlantic Canada with commercial landings typically valued at more than $5 million annually. Sea urchin gametes are expressed into the water column where fertilization occurs when the seawater temperature is optimally about 8-12 ºC. A sea urchin fertilization test was used in this study to assess fertilization success in the presence of both herders at varying concentrations. American lobster forms the basis of a very important fishery throughout Atlantic Canada with landings expected to be over $2 billion each year. Female lobsters carry fertilized eggs on their abdomen for about a year with hatching in the Bay of Fundy region occurring during late-summer to mid-fall when seawater temperature is near its peak. “Huntsman Marine has developed numerous repeatable exposures involving all lobster life stages, with a frequently performed test focused on the newly hatched Stage I larvae that live in the upper water column where interaction with a surface oil spill is possible during those 3-4 months when larval lobsters are present,” explained Asnicar. Testing with Atlantic cod and lumpfish larvae is another Huntsman Marine specialty that is not readily performed by other toxicology labs globally. Both of these tests require maintenance of in house adults that become mature to spawn and provide access to gametes or fertilized eggs for incubation and hatching. The commercial value of Atlantic cod landings is presently a shadow of what it once was but still surpasses $20 million annually. Spawning occurs during winter and this requires exposure temperatures to be maintained at 3-7 ºC to provide realistic results. The lumpfish fishery is considerably lower in value but the species is receiving more recent attention due to its threatened status and consideration for listing under the Species at Risk Act in Canada. Lumpfish spawn in the April-May period and testing occurred at 12±2 ºC. The herder Siltech was found to be between 4 and 78 times more toxic than ThickSlick regardless of the test species or endpoint measured. The sea urchin fertilization test produced the most sensitive endpoint in the study with an effective concentration to cause an impact in 50% (EC50) of the fertilization success of 1.0 mg/L following a 20-minute exposure to Siltech. The least sensitive test to Siltech was from the lumpfish exposure for 3 hr with the lethal concentration to cause mortality in 50% (LC50) of the exposed larvae to be 13.4 mg/L. Siltech caused significantly higher mortality in Stage I lobsters than ThickSlick, however, all larvae that survived were able to molt from Stage I to Stage II lobsters during the exposure trials. Exposures to the herder ThickSlick using the same early life stages provided very different sensitivity results. The hatching success of 20-day-old cod embryos was the least sensitive to ThickSlick with an EC50 of 476.6 mg/L. The most sensitive endpoints were the survival of 24-hr-old cod embryos, with an LC50 of 8.6 mg/L at 48 hr and 7.6 mg/L at 72 hr, and the sea urchin fertilization 20-min EC50 of 8.8 mg/L. The choice of whether and which herder to use in the event of an oil spill will be based on what is approved by regulators, the type of oil spilled, and net environmental benefit analysis for the specific environmental sensitivity. “We are pleased to contribute necessary hazard data that regulators may use when choosing the best path forward to address a possible oil spill while providing the highest level of protection to the environment,” concluded Asnicar. The research publication was co-authored by researchers at Aarhus University (Roskilde, Denmark) and Fisheries & Ocean Canada. The study was funded by Fisheries & Ocean Canada through Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and The Huntsman Marine Science Centre. Research Publication: Asnicar, D.A. , T. Boloori , J. Durante , P. Lassen, J. Fritt-Rasmussen, B. de Jourdan and K. Lee. 2025. Hazard assessment of oil spill response chemical herding agents to commercially valuable North Atlantic species. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1093/etojnl/vgae021 Image 1: Graphical abstract overviewing the herding agent research. Image 2: Example results showing the difference in toxicity between Siltech OP-40 and ThickSlick 6535 with embryo hatching success in Atlantic cod (upper) and Stage I American lobster mortality (lower). Story by Bud Adams, The Huntsman Marine Science Centre. For additional information or images relating to this article, please email huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca . Return to our Press Room for more stories!

Press Room The Huntsman Marine Science Centre is a federally registered non-profit and charity established in 1969 on the shore of the Bay of Fundy in St. Andrews, NB. Our award winning efforts are delivered through our expertise and facilities focused on ocean education, conservation and research. Today, our aquatic focused research expertise is in the fields of Breeding & Genetics, Taxonomy & Biodiversity, Toxicology, and Animal Health. The bulk of our research is conducted within our extensive land-based facilities in St. Andrews but also extend globally through an international network of collaborators and frequent field sampling expeditions from local environs in the Bay of Fundy and throughout Atlantic Canada & Quebec to as far afield as the sub-Antarctic region. We regularly conduct activities to support well over 50 projects per year across numerous sectors of the ocean economy, including aquaculture production, oil production & shipping, pulp & paper, and Marine Protected Areas, amongst many others. Our ocean literacy programs directly engage more than 3,000 students & participants of all ages each year with more than 80,000 students attending Huntsman Marine programs since 1969. Our Fundy Discovery Aquarium is visited by more than 30,000 guests annually thereby representing a key tourism attraction in our region. Huntsman Marine is recognized for deploying our education and research assets to effect positive change through impactful conservation and engaging outreach initiatives that benefit the local marine environment and ocean economy. Excellent examples include the Huntsman Marine led #DebrisFreeFundy initiative, biodiversity conservation programs, and engaging citizen science projects. Looking to Interview a Huntsman Marine Professional Our researchers, educators and outreach teammates are available for interviews on all topics directly related to Huntsman Marine activities and often many other ocean issues. We suggest that all media inquiries begin with an emailed request to huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca that also includes a brief description of your story so we are able to connect you with the most relevant Huntsman Marine professional. You may also choose to contact our staff directly on your own but still encourage you to copy the email address above to ensure your specific needs are met in a timely manner to support your story and publishing needs. Latest Content Huntsman Marine has published various newsletters over the years. Fall & Spring editions of SeaWords Newsletter provided marine biology inspiration for the classroom from 2010 to 2019. Our efforts expanded with a monthly newsletter – Rising Tides – that provided broader updates across all Huntsman Marine activities from December 2020 to March 2022. We also publish an Annual Impact Report to provide an annual review of our activities and the impact that we have through our efforts across ocean research, education and conservation. All of these publications are available for download at: https://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/archives . We are quite active on Facebook and LinkedIn (both as Huntsman Marine Science Centre) where we often publish information focused on our research activities & peer-reviewed publication summaries, visiting school & university groups, and conservation efforts. A series of blogs describing our activities while away on scientific expeditions are also available here and updated when appropriate to do so: https://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/blog . A key part of our storytelling also includes a series of Impact Spotlights that highlight our efforts related to a specific topic of interest, and often focused on a contemporary issue that might be in the news at the time of release, and available to view and download here: https://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/impactspotlights . Recent Press Releases Media are encouraged to republish our Press Releases within their own distribution formats with appropriate recognition. The below Huntsman Marine Press Releases may be reprinted in full as is or you may use our content as the basis for your own story. You may also request any of the below Press Releases in pdf format, with the photographs embedded in the pdf file or shared as separate files, by sending an email request to huntsman@huntsmanmarine.ca and referring to the specific Press Release that interests your outlet. Huntsman Marine research expand possible options for oil spill clean-up response in Atlantic Canadian waters St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – February 18, 2026 Two surface collecting agents are currently listed and approved for potential use in the United States: Siltech OP-40 and ThickSlick 6535. The choice of whether and which herder to use in the event of an oil spill will be based on what is approved by regulators, the type of oil spilled, and net environmental benefit analysis for the specific environmental sensitivity. The herder Siltech was found to be between 4 and 78 times more toxic than ThickSlick when tested with early life stages of green sea urchin, American lobster, Atlantic cod and lumpfish. Read More Surveys provide evidence of spread of ‘sea vomit’, an invasive colonial tunicate, in the western Bay of Fundy region of Atlantic Canada St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – March 11, 2025 Survey results indicated clear presence of sea vomit within the study area using eDNA techniques in 2018, 2020 & 2021. Sea vomit was also present at 11 of the diver surveyed sites at depths of 3-22 m on bedrock, boulder and cobble substrates. The imagery transects confirmed sea vomit to be common in 8.7% of the total area covered, including considerably deeper habitats than those surveyed by SCUBA with the paper reporting the deepest occurrence to date globally at 118 m. Read More Micro- and nano-plastic particle research needs urgent improvement for effective biomonitoring and risk assessment purposes St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – February 4, 2025 Just 32 (8%) of the 409 publications reviewed met the criteria for biomonitoring reliability and utility while informing ecological risk. These results clearly highlight the urgent need for more robust and methodologically sound micro- and nano-plastic biomonitoring studies that adhere to established guidelines describing standard methods for conduct and reporting. Read More CBC STORY: Scallop fishers scoop invasive sea vomit from Bay of Fundy in aid of science CBC News – Posted January 21, 2025 The invasive marine invertebrate is known as sea vomit, sea squirt and pancake-batter tunicate, and large patches of it were found near Deer Island in 2020 and 2022, according to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in Saint Andrews. 50 fishers are assisting Huntsman Marine Science Centre as it studies rubbery species. Read More Study reveals candidate genes to improve Atlantic salmon fatty acid composition through selective breeding St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – January 7, 2025 Most of the 35 studied fatty acids in Atlantic salmon had moderate to high genomic heritability suggesting that selection for improved fatty acid content is possible within a breeding program. The same genomic peak for three fatty acids was present on Chromosome 23 and associated with three genes having lipid metabolism functions while five other fatty acids were associated with genetic markers on different chromosomes that have genes associated with fatty acids and adipose cells. Read More Oil spill compound effects on culture growth of a marine microalgae species St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – December 3, 2024 Only two of the tested oil spill compounds caused greater than 50% growth inhibition in all three temperatures while only one produced results indicating sensitivity to warmer water temperature. Exposing the test solutions to UV light had no impact on toxicity to the tested microalgae species DT. Read More Identifying genetic markers to improve Atlantic salmon fillet color St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – November 5, 2024 Fillet color is perhaps the most important sensory characteristic that influences consumer purchasing at a fish market. This recently published Huntsman Marine study provides insights into the genomic architecture of North American origin Atlantic salmon fillet color traits that will aid in broodstock selection to obtain a desired fillet color. Read More Does berried female American lobster exposure to an anti-sea lice drug in sediment affect subsequent egg and larvae development? St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – October 8, 2024 American lobsters and salmon farming operations often co-exist through Atlantic Canada where anti-sea lice drugs may also be used to treat farmed salmon. This recently reported Huntsman Marine study explores the toxicology effects of an often used anti-sea lice drug on ovigerous (berried) female lobsters and newly hatched larval lobsters. Read More Is tolerance to rising seawater temperature heritable in Atlantic salmon? St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – September 17, 2024 Rising seawater temperature due to climate change poses a threat to Atlantic salmon in farmed populations during their major growth phase in coastal (seawater) net pens. A recent Huntsman Marine study reported temperature tolerance to be a strongly heritable trait and improvements may be possible through directed breeding programs. Read More Study explores the lethal and sublethal effects of tire wear chemical on early life stages of brook trout St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – September 3, 2024 Younger brook trout fry were observed to be about 2-3 times more sensitive to 6PPD-quinone compared to older fingerlings based on Huntsman Marine research. Exposure to environmentally relevant 6PPD-quinone concentrations also had many sublethal effects, including changes to blood chemistry parameters and gill structure. Read More The Huntsman Marine Science Centre turns 55 this week! St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada – August 19, 2024 We recognize August 23rd each year to celebrate the founding anniversary of The Huntsman Marine Science Centre. We embrace our storied past while looking forward to an incredibly bright future engaging, inspiring, studying and innovating for the ocean. Read More

After a few days exploring the marine environment around Les Escoumins we are now headed for the Saguenay Fjord. Carved by glaciers during the last ice age, the Saguenay Fjord is a thin U-shaped valley, 105 km long and on average only 1.6 km wide. Cliffs tower above the surface of its waters, reaching 412 m at their highest point, Cap Trinité. They continue to plunge into depths of over 275 m. High cliffs at the edge of the Saguenay Fjord. Credit: Ellen Fanning/Huntsman Marine Skipper Carl Tremblay has quizzed us about our diving experience to make sure we are qualified enough to safely dive the fjord. All divers must have experience of night diving and diving in currents. But why night diving when we are here in the daytime? We are ready for our first dive, and it is time to find out! The team onboard the Accès Plongee Saguenay boat with skipper and dive expert Carl Tremblay. Charlie, Claire, Andrea and Jo prepare to dive. Credit: Ellen Fanning/Huntsman Marine Explos-Nature diver Julian, my buddy for today, and I are ready to dive. We step off the platform at the back of the boat and swim rapidly to the wall to avoid being swept away by the current. We check in with each other and start to descend. There are two distinct water layers within the fjord. As we start to sink, we are first passing through the upper freshwater layer. At this time of year, it is pleasantly warm, it can reach up to 20°C in summer, but in winter it freezes. Mussels cover the wall. Only freshwater species can live here, salinities range between 5 and 26 ppt. I look up towards the surface. The light is an eerie reddish-orange colour. This freshwater comes from Lake Saint-Jean and the tannins and iron from the forests that surround the lake make it a tea-like colour. The brown surface water blocks out light so by the time we reach 15 m it is almost completely dark. I am very glad of my large video lights. I check in with Julian and we continue to descend. The water starts to shimmer and become hazy, it’s hard to see Julian even though he is right next to me. The top fresh layer and the deeper marine waters are starting to mix, causing this effect. We are now entering the seawater that forms most of the fjord. This layer is fully marine, varying in salinity from 26 to 31 ppt. It is also much colder than the surface waters for much of the year, typically between 0 and 4°C, although recently it has been warming and today it is around 6°C. The unique environments found in fjords mean that you often find deep-sea organisms much shallower than they would normally be present. So, sampling here is a great opportunity for us to get specimens of deeper water species for our project. We reach our target depth and I start to sample. The rock walls are covered with life: bright red sea strawberry soft corals, basket stars with tangled arms, and most exciting for me, many sponges. Although I have to admit the iridescent bobtail squid are rather more fun to watch! Sea strawberry soft corals and basket stars on the wall at Cap Trinité. Jo is using bright lights to take this photo, or this would be pitch black. Credit: Jo Porter This sea slug species was common, here you can see a group and their egg masses to the left. Credit: Claire Goodwin/Huntsman Marine Bobtail squid were frequent in the Saguenay Fjord. Credit: Claire Goodwin/Huntsman Marine

“So,” Charlie explains, “you simply put on your fins and crawl backward over the rock into the water. Then to get out, you can grasp onto this spike to help pull yourself out of the water.” Charlie is the Diving Officer for Explos-Nature and our dive guide for today. The three of us look at her, slightly horrified, rock climbing wasn’t in my risk assessment! We are all wearing twin sets (two scuba tanks) with heavy lead weight belts and are loaded down with sampling bags and cameras. We have also already hiked down the hill pushing our dive kit in wheelbarrows and then carried it over the uneven rocks to the edge of the water. Following Charlie’s advice, we slide down the sloping rock like three clumsy seals. But when we have sunk down to the seabed it is worth the struggle. Large red anemones and scarlet sea cucumbers cover the rock wall. Between them are lots of smaller animals – including bryozoans. We get to work sampling. Andrea, Julian, Claire and Jo prepare to enter the water at Les Escoumins. Credit: Explos Nature The steep rocky shores at Les Escoumins made for some tricky entries. Credit: Ellen Fanning We are diving in Baie des Anémones at Les Escoumins. This is a popular base for scuba diving from the shore, operated by Parks Canada. Les Escoumins is situated on a rocky peninsula on the north shore of the St Lawrence Estuary. Here, the rocky shores drop rapidly to depths of 300 metres. The upwellings and currents supply abundant food for filter feeding animals, so the sites are very rich in marine life. Filter feeding anemones, sea peaches (ascidians) and sea cucumbers cover every surface in the Baie des Anemones. Credit: Jo Porter Ellen is acting as our shore safety attendant, poised ready to help if there is any incident while we are diving. This can be a fairly boring job, watching the divers’ bubbles or buoy until they surface. But on this trip whales entertain Ellen while we are underwater. Because the shore here is so close to deep water, you can whale watch right from the rocks. A humpback whale surfaces before flipping its tail up to dive. In the distance Ellen spots a blue whale! Meanwhile, the divers underwater are oblivious to this wildlife spectacle as they intently examine rocks and boulders for marine invertebrates. While we are diving Christy and Mary are off exploring the intertidal zones of the shore or pontoons in marinas. This also isn’t without its hazards – Mary returns from one trip covered in mosquito bites. The first shore site is a rocky mussel bed at Cap de Bon-Désir. Many tourists watch from the rock bluffs as a humpback whale entertains us only about 30 feet away. This shore is dominated by blue mussels, amphipods (Gammarus) and large predatory worms (Alitta virens). Rocky shore at Cap de Bon-Désir. Credit: Mary Spencer Jones On day two, we head to a very different intertidal habitat with a sandy beach at Pointe à John. Here, the fauna reminds me much more of that in subarctic Churchill, MB, than in the Bay of Fundy. In particular, castings of the lugworm Arenicola marina litter the beach. We walk out for 30 minutes, but we are still only halfway to the low water edge. We decide to stop here and see what we can find. Mary examines the seaweeds for white patches of bryozoans while I dig and sieve the sand for organisms. We have a window of about 1 hour before the tide comes back in and threatens to carry away our buckets and tools. Sandy beach at Pointe à John. Credit: Mary Spencer Jones We are also using a grab to sample. This is a device that has jaws that close to grab a chunk of the seabed. Normally we would use a winch on the boat to haul the full grab from the seabed, but the Explos-Nature boat is small and does not have a winch. So, we must hand haul the grab. We soon develop a good system, three of us hauling at once. But it is hard work! Hauling up the grab aboard the Explos-Nature vessel the Merveille C. Credit: Explos Nature After our sampling trips we head back to the lab to examine and identify our finds. We’re not looking only for the big stuff that is obvious underwater but also tiny animals that are hard to see with the naked eye. We hunt over rocks for the tiniest bryozoan crusts, pick minute shrimp off weed and pull minuscule worms out of seafloor mud and sand. We have to photograph each specimen, give it a field ID and preserve it in ethanol so we can examine it further later and send tissue off to be barcoded. The team hard at work in the lab examining the day’s catches. Credit: Ellen Fanning

We’re off on the road again, and this time we are headed to Quebec on fieldwork for our barcoding project. This project will create a barcode library for Atlantic Canadian marine invertebrate species. It's funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada under a program that aims to develop tools for monitoring Marine Protected Areas. Barcodes are short fragments of DNA that we can use to identify species instead of examining their physical characteristics. However, this is only possible if the species are already in a barcoding reference database, and we estimate that over half of our marine species are not yet barcoded. To learn more about barcodes check out Christy’s blog from last year https://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/post/soi-expedition-blog-post-2-what-is-a-barcode-christy-carr. Last year, during the first phase of the project, Christy completed a gap analysis to determine which marine species barcodes were missing with a primary gap being from the Phylum Bryozoa where few species had been barcoded to date. Bryozoans can be erect, like Dendrobeania murrayana (top) or encrusting like Parasmittina jeffreysi (bottom). Credit: HMSC. Bryozoans or moss animals are colonial, aquatic organisms. Their colonies are composed of individuals called zooids. Bryozoan colonies can grow over rocks, shells and seaweed in thin sheets or form upright fan or bush structures. Although all zooids in a colony are genetically identical, they can look very different and perform different jobs, including feeding, excretion, defence and reproduction. Bryozoans are filter feeders and use a crown of tentacles, called a lophophore, to take small particles, such as bacteria and plankton, from seawater. The bryozoan Flustrellidra hispida feeding. Credit: Mary Spencer-Jones. Unfortunately, there are currently no bryozoan specialists working on the east coast of Canada, so for this trip we have imported some from the United Kingdom! Mary Spencer Jones is the Senior Curator of Recent Bryozoa from the Natural History Museum in London, Andrea Waeschenbach, also from the Natural History Museum, is a Researcher who specialises in molecular systematics, and Professor Jo Porter from Heriot Watt University. The bryozoan team Andrea, Mary and Jo did occasionally escape the lab to sample Canadian delicacies like poutine. We’ve chosen to go to Québec to get samples of more northern fauna for our project. The Gulf of St Lawrence has much colder waters than our Bay of Fundy, so we find Arctic and boreal species there. We’ll be working with Explos-Nature (https://explosnature.ca; a non-profit organization with some similar activities as Huntsman Marine but in Québec). Their team have extensive diving experience in the local area and will guide us to the best spots. Our survey is within the Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park and we have permits from both Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Parks Canada to allow us to sample. The team will travel from Huntsman Marine to Les Escoumins and the Saguenay Fjord, both are within the Saguenay-St Lawrence Marine Park. Credit: Map data from Google. Cool facts about bryozoan Many bryozoans have calcium carbonate skeletons – we identify their species by looking at the shape of the zooids. We often have to look at them at very high magnification to see clearly. We sometimes must use a scanning electron microscope to do so. A colony of the bryozoan Dendrobeania murrayana seen under the scanning electron microscope. Credit: HMSC. Romans used to grind up bryozoans to use as toothpaste. Their calcium carbonate skeleton is abrasive to scrub off dirt and stains. However, the Romans might not have been too discriminating as they also used urine and mouse brains for teeth cleaning! We can use the chemicals in bryozoans (or the bacterial colonies that live inside the bryozoan) to develop new drugs. Bryozoans produce chemicals to stop predators from eating them. Many of these have medicinal properties against diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. Bryozoans can grow very big. One specimen of the potato crisp bryozoan Pentapora foliacea trawled up in the UK was over two metres wide. Sadly, bryozoans rarely grow this large now as they are easily damaged by mobile fishing gear (and scientific sampling gear!). A colony of the potato crisp bryozoan Pentapora foliacea. Credit: Natural History Museum, London. Some bryozoans have structures called avicularia that look like bird heads. The beak snaps at predators to deter them from eating the colony or removes organisms that try to settle on it. A colony of Dendrobeania murrayana in close up showing birds head avicularia. Credit: Mary Spencer-Jones. Bryozoans can form reefs similar to coral reefs. One reef at Western Port in southern Australia covers an area of 1.74 km2 and up to 1.5 m high. https://fathompacific.com/project-spotlight/western-port-bryozoan-reef-project/ We can find bryozoans from the seashore to the deep sea. The deepest a bryozoan has been found so far was at 8,300 m in the Kermadec Trench in the Pacific Ocean.