The European Union-funded ECASA project (Ecosystem Approach for Sustainable Aquaculture) studied the impacts from aquaculture on ecosystems from northern Norway to Greece. The objectives of this investigation were to identify quantitative indicators of the effects of aquaculture on marine communities, and to assess their applicability over a range of ecosystems and aquaculture production systems. The study included 6 Mediterranean and 4 Atlantic sites, 7 of which produced finfish (seabream, seabass, tuna, salmon and cod), and 2 bivalve molluscs (oysters, mussels, and clams); one site produced both fish and bivalves. Cultivation methods included finfish cages, long-lines and trestles. Similar sampling methodologies were employed at the 10 study sites, obtaining sediment, hydrodynamic, and benthic faunal data. The horizontal impact from organic enrichment extended 50 m from the farms, with contradictory responses in several indicators (individual abundance, biomass) and a more consistent response of the Infaunal Trophic Index (ITI) and AZTI's Marine Biotic Index (AMBI). By means of Partial Redundancy Analysis, it was demonstrated that the environmental variables explained 53.2% of the variability in the macrofaunal variables (individual abundance, species richness, diversity, AMBI and ITI), whilst the explained variance was partialled out within three groups of variables: (i) 'hydrography' (depth, distance to farm, average current speed), which explained 11.5% of the variance; (ii) 'sediment' (Eh and percentages of silt and total organic matter), which explained 5.4%; and (iii) 'cages' (years of production and annual production), which explained 15.2%. The shared variance explained by interactions among these groups was 21.1%. These results, together with multiple regression analysis, provide an accurate assessment of the degree of impact from aquaculture. In conclusion, the use of several benthic indicators, in assessing farm impacts, together with the investigation of dynamics of the studied location, water depth, years of farm activity, and total annual production, must be included when interpreting the response of benthic communities to organic enrichment from aquaculture.
The European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) project has compiled a list of marine species in Europe and a bibliography of marine species identification guides. ERMS has also surveyed species identification and taxonomic expertise, and the state of marine species collections in Europe. A total of 29 713 species-level taxa were catalogued from European seas. Overall, 90% of the taxon checklists were satisfactory, but non-halacarid Acarina, diatoms, lichens and cyanobacteria were not included, and geographical coverage of the European seas was incomplete for Rotifera and Brachiopoda. Lists that would benefit from further input include (1) those that have not yet been checked by an expert on European fauna, namely lists of the non-epicarid Isopoda, Cephalochordata, Appendicularia, Hemichordata, Hirudinea, Gnathostomulida, Ctenophora and Placozoa; (2) preliminary lists, including some of the above and lists of protists; and (3) lists with many species but which have been reviewed by only a few experts. These gaps are now being addressed in an online version of ERMS (www.marbef.org/data/erms.php). The bibliography of 842 identification guides shows that there are fewer guides for southern European seas, although they contain more species, than for those in northern Europe. Adequate guides for all of Europe's seas exist only for fishes. New guides are especially needed for the species-rich, but small-sized taxa, such as polychaete, oligochaete and turbellarian worms, and harpacticoid copepods. A database of > 600 experts (individuals who stated themselves to be experts) and a subset of these recognised by their peers as being taxonomic experts was established. While there were generally more experts for taxa with a large number of species, there was no correlation between the number of taxonomists and the number of species per taxon; some taxa with thousands of species are studied by relatively few taxonomists. Such gaps in marine biodiversity knowledge and resources must be addressed by funding the production of additional species identification guides.
Marine species new to science continue to be discovered around Britain and Ireland. The number of marine species described each year was plotted against time for Pisces, Echinodermata, Anthozoa, Bivalvia, Decapoda, Gastropoda, Bryozoa, Tunicata, Medusozoa, Amphipoda, Porifera, Nudibranchia, Polychaeta, Copepoda, Oligochaeta, and Nematoda. Trends suggest that the latter four taxa in particular, in which individuals generally have a small body size, still have many species remaining to be described. More conspicuous taxa are better known, but new species continue to be described. Whilst the World Wars and advent of new scientific techniques do not appear to have had significant impacts on the general trends in discovery of new species, individual scientists have made major contributions.
We describe an integrated database on European macrobenthic fauna, developed within the framework of the European Network of Excellence MarBEF, and the data and data integration exercise that provided its content. A total of 44 datasets including 465 354 distribution records from soft-bottom macrobenthic species were uploaded into the relational MacroBen database, corresponding to 22 897 sampled stations from all European seas, and 7203 valid taxa. All taxonomic names were linked to the European Register of Marine Species, which was used as the taxonomic reference to standardise spelling and harmonise synonymy. An interface was created, allowing the user to explore, subselect, export and analyse the data by calculating different indices. Although the sampling techniques and intended use of the datasets varied tremendously, the integrated database proved to be robust, and an important tool for studying and understanding large-scale long-term distributions and abundances of marine benthic life. Crucial in the process was the willingness and the positive data-sharing attitude of the different data contributors. Development of a data policy that is highly aware of sensitivities and ownership issues of data providers was essential in the creation of this goodwill.
This study examines whether or not biogeographical and/or managerial divisions across the European seas can be validated using soft-bottom macrobenthic community data. The faunal groups used were: all macrobenthos groups, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, sipunculans and the last 5 groups combined. In order to test the discriminating power of these groups, 3 criteria were used: (1) proximity, which refers to the expected closer faunal resemblance of adjacent areas relative to more distant ones; (2) randomness, which in the present context is a measure of the degree to which the inventories of the various sectors, provinces or regions may in each case be considered as a random sample of the inventory of the next largest province or region in a hierarchy of geographic scales; and (3) differentiation, which provides a measure of the uniqueness of the pattern. Results show that only polychaetes fulfill all 3 criteria and that the only marine biogeographic system supported by the analyses is the one proposed by Longhurst (1998). Energy fluxes and other interactions between the planktonic and benthic domains, acting over evolutionary time scales, can be associated with the multivariate pattern derived from the macrobenthos datasets. Third-stage multidimensional scaling ordination reveals that polychaetes produce a unique pattern when all systems are under consideration. Average island distance from the nearest coast, number of islands and the island surface area were the geographic variables best correlated with the community patterns produced by polychaetes. Biogeographic patterns suggest a vicariance model dominating over the founder-dispersal model except for the semi-closed regional seas, where a model substantially modified from the second option could be supported.
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