A synthetic map of the north-west European Shelf sedimentary environment for applications in marine science

Wilson, Robert J.; Speirs, Douglas C.; Sabatino, Alessandro; Heath, Michael R.

doi:10.5194/essd-10-109-2018

Cited by 67 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Shelf sediments are dominated by permeable (sandy) sediment (Boudreau et al, 2001;Hall, 2002;Glud, 2008;Rao et al, 2008;Hicks et al, 2017) which typically have lower organic and higher inorganic carbon concentrations compared to cohesive (muddy) sediments. The distribution of PIC in shelf sediments aligns with the coverage of permeable sediments (Wilson et al, 2018), particularly in areas of high carbonate sediments such as the Shetland and Orkney Islands (see Figure 3).…”

Section: Outputs To Benthic Storage and The Open Oceansupporting

confidence: 61%

“…Sediment carbon stocks and benthic-pelagic fluxes were calculated using different spatial divisions to each other, due to differences in data availability. Observations and modeling (Diesing et al, 2017;Wilson et al, 2018) allowed carbon stocks to be resolved at a regional level so the seabed of the NWES was divided into 13 areas (the 11 regions in Figure 1, plus sediment in Scottish lochs and Norwegian fjords). Benthic-pelagic fluxes were estimated over the whole shelf area due to data paucity, with the exception of lochs, fjords, the Norwegian Trench and the Skagerrak and Kattegat, which were quantified separately.…”

Section: Scope and Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figure 3 shows the particulate organic and inorganic carbon stocks in the top 0.1 m of sediment of the NWES. Stocks of POC were calculated using observed relationships between POC data and various predictor variables (Diesing et al, 2017;Wilson et al, 2018), substantially extending the analysis in Diesing et al (2017) to the whole of the NWES. Particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) stock was estimated using the same approach (Supplementary Material) but was done for the first time as a part of this study.…”

Section: Outputs To Benthic Storage and The Open Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf: Contemporary Budget and Future Influences

et al. 2020

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A carbon budget for the northwest European continental shelf seas (NWES) was synthesized using available estimates for coastal, pelagic and benthic carbon stocks and flows. Key uncertainties were identified and the effect of future impacts on the carbon budget were assessed. The water of the shelf seas contains between 210 and 230 Tmol of carbon and absorbs between 1.3 and 3.3 Tmol from the atmosphere annually. Offshelf transport and burial in the sediments account for 60-100 and 0-40% of carbon outputs from the NWES, respectively. Both of these fluxes remain poorly constrained by observations and resolving their magnitudes and relative importance is a key research priority. Pelagic and benthic carbon stocks are dominated by inorganic carbon. Shelf sediments contain the largest stock of carbon, with between 520 and 1600 Tmol stored in the top 0.1 m of the sea bed. Coastal habitats such as salt marshes and mud flats contain large amounts of carbon per unit area but their total carbon stocks are small compared to pelagic and benthic stocks due to their smaller spatial extent. The large pelagic stock of carbon will continue to increase due to the rising concentration of atmospheric CO 2 , with associated pH decrease. Pelagic carbon stocks and flows are also likely to be significantly affected by increasing acidity and temperature, and circulation changes but the net impact is uncertain. Benthic carbon stocks will be affected by increasing temperature and acidity, and decreasing oxygen concentrations, although the net impact of these interrelated changes on carbon stocks is uncertain and a major knowledge gap. The impact of bottom trawling on benthic carbon stocks Frontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.org 1 March 2020 | Volume 7 | Article 143Legge et al.Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf is unique amongst the impacts we consider in that it is widespread and also directly manageable, although its net effect on the carbon budget is uncertain. Coastal habitats are vulnerable to sea level rise and are strongly impacted by management decisions. Local, national and regional actions have the potential to protect or enhance carbon storage, but ultimately global governance, via controls on emissions, has the greatest potential to influence the long-term fate of carbon stocks in the northwestern European continental shelf.

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Section: Outputs To Benthic Storage and The Open Oceansupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Scope and Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Outputs To Benthic Storage and The Open Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf: Contemporary Budget and Future Influences

et al. 2020

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“…Sediment median grain size was collated from Wilson, Speirs, Sabatino, and Heath (2018), a synthetic map derived from a blend of survey data, statistically modelled values derived from bed shear stress and bathymetry, with a spatial resolution of 0.125° × 0.125°. The full dataset can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.15129/1e27b806-1eae-494d-83b5-a5f4792c46fc.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capturing threshold responses of marine benthos along gradients of natural and anthropogenic change

Couce

Engelhard

Schratzberger

2020

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Ecologists and managers need to understand what types of communities emerge with continued human alterations to ecosystems against a background of natural change. Both natural and anthropogenic drivers are well known to affect organisms’ distributions; however, it often remains unclear where along a range of environmental and anthropogenic gradients important compositional community changes occur. We used a big‐data approach, including over 175,000 presence records of benthic genera for the North Sea, to identify environmental (bed shear stress, sediment grain size, temperature) and anthropogenic parameters (trawling effort) driving benthic community composition over a 21‐year period. We applied a Gradient Forest analysis, based on Random Forests, to estimate the locations and importance of thresholds where small cumulative increases in the predictors drive a much greater change in genus composition than would be expected from linear effects. Shear stress was the most important predictor of benthic community composition. Trawling effort, temperature gradients and sediment grain size were of intermediate importance. This corroborates that current and wave effects (typically associated with seabed substrate types) are primary determinants of benthic communities. Our results suggest that a genus composition threshold for both infauna and epifaunal benthic communities is crossed when the seafloor is trawled as little as once every 4 years. Higher trawling levels corresponded with gradual compositional change without obvious thresholds, which would be consistent with chronic fishing in the North Sea over the last two centuries having caused persistent, long‐term changes in ecosystem structure and functioning. This was corroborated by the large‐scale spatial patterns of benthic community composition undergoing limited temporal changes during the 21‐year study period. Synthesis and applications. Although well established in theory, threshold effects are poorly validated in the field. We generated new information on multi‐organism responses to environmental change at the scale of a continental shelf ecosystem and over a multi‐decadal time period. This will help pure and applied scientists better understand the conditions under which community thresholds are crossed and provide environmental managers with empirical evidence that is expected to reduce uncertainty regarding decisions on the protection and sustainable use of the marine environment.

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“…Fig. 2 presents the percent sand, mud, and gravel of each 1 9 1 min grid cell obtained from Wilson et al (2018). Tidal bed shear stress (N/m 2 ) was obtained from a hydrodynamic model by John Aldridge (CEFAS) as used in Hiddink et al (2006) and van Denderen et al (2015a).…”

Section: Habitat Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating sensitivity of seabed habitats to disturbance by bottom trawling based on the longevity of benthic fauna

Rijnsdorp

Bolam

Garcia

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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Bottom fishing such as trawling and dredging may pose serious risks to the seabed and benthic habitats, calling for a quantitative assessment method to evaluate the impact and guide management to develop mitigation measures. We provide a method to estimate the sensitivity of benthic habitats based on the longevity composition of the invertebrate community. We hypothesize that long‐lived species are more sensitive to trawling mortality due to their lower pace of life (i.e., slower growth, late maturation). We analyze data from box‐core and grab samples taken from 401 stations in the English Channel and southern North Sea to estimate the habitat‐specific longevity composition of the benthic invertebrate community and of specific functional groups (i.e., suspension feeders and bioturbators), and examine how bottom trawling affects the longevity biomass composition. The longevity biomass composition differed between habitats governed by differences in sediment composition (gravel and mud content) and tidal bed‐shear stress. The biomass proportion of long‐lived species increased with gravel content and decreased with mud content and shear stress. Bioturbators had a higher median longevity than suspension feeders. Trawling, in particular by gears that penetrate the seabed >2 cm, shifted the community toward shorter‐lived species. Changes from bottom trawling were highest in habitats with many long‐lived species (hence increasing with gravel content, decreasing with mud content). Benthic communities in high shear stress habitats were less affected by bottom trawling. Using these relationships, we predicted the sensitivity of the benthic community from bottom trawling impact at large spatial scale (the North Sea). We derived different benthic sensitivity metrics that provide a basis to estimate indicators of trawling impact on a continuous scale for the total community and specific functional groups. In combination with high resolution data of trawling pressure, our approach can be used to monitor and assess trawling impact and seabed status at the scale of the region or broadscale habitat and to compare the environmental impact of bottom‐contacting fishing gears across fisheries.

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A synthetic map of the north-west European Shelf sedimentary environment for applications in marine science

Cited by 67 publications

References 61 publications

Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf: Contemporary Budget and Future Influences

Carbon on the Northwest European Shelf: Contemporary Budget and Future Influences

Capturing threshold responses of marine benthos along gradients of natural and anthropogenic change

Estimating sensitivity of seabed habitats to disturbance by bottom trawling based on the longevity of benthic fauna

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