Offshore fixed photovoltaic shading reshapes microbial community and functional potential in winter
This study investigated how fixed offshore photovoltaic (PV) shading modifies the underwater light environment and whether such alterations could propagate to ecologically relevant responses. In winter, seawater was collected from PV-covered and adjacent control sites and sampled across two vertical strata (surface and bottom) for metagenomic profiling, alongside ecosystem-scale light and primary production measurements, to evaluate shifts in microbial community composition and functional potential. The relevance is to strengthen ecological risk assessment for offshore PV by testing whether reductions in surface light translate into changes in standard light/production indicators and by clarifying how microbial communities and biogeochemical functions, particularly methane and nitrogen transformation potentials, are associated with vertical water-column gradients under different PV shading conditions.