Common trends in German Bight benthic macrofaunal communities: Assessing temporal variability and the relative importance of environmental variables

Abstract

We examined long-term variability in the abundance of German Bight soft bottom macro-zoobenthos together with major environmental factors (sea surface temperature, winter NAO index, salinity, phosphate, nitrate and silicate) using one of the most comprehensive ecological long-term data sets in the North Sea . Two techniques, Min/Max Autocorrelation Factor Analysis (MAFA) and Dynamic Factor Analysis (DFA) were used to identify underlying common trends in the macrofaunal time series and the relationships between this series and environmental variables. These methods are particularly suitable for relatively short (N15-25 years), non-stationary multivariate data series. Both MAFA and DFA identify a common trend in German Bight macrofaunal abundance i.e. a slight decrease (1981-mid-1990s) followed by a sharp trough in the late 1990s. Subsequently, scores increased again towards 2011. Our analysis indicates that winter temperature and North Atlantic Oscillation were the predominant environmental drivers of temporal variation in German Bight macrofaunal abundance. The techniques applied here are suitable tools to describe temporal fluctuations in complex and noisy multiple time series data and can detect distinct shifts and trends within such time series.

Climate‐driven changes in macrobenthic communities in the Mediterranean Sea: A 10‐year study in the Bay of Banyuls‐sur‐Mer

“…In the North Sea, the key environmental parameter controlling benthic macrofauna composition is wintertime temperature (Beukema et al, 2000;Kröncke et al, 1998Kröncke et al, , 2013Kröncke et al, , 2001Neumann et al, 2008;Shojaei et al, 2016). Our results suggest similar processes occurring in the NW Mediterranean under hydro-sedimentary forcing.…”

“…Regarding the most appropriate integration period, it was first suggested that NAO has a stronger control on the climate of the Northern Hemisphere during wintertime. During this season, the magnitude and spatial coherence of atmospheric circulation variability as well as the influence of circulation changes and large-scale precipitation are stronger (Osborn, 2006;Osborn, Conway, Hulme, Gregory, & Jones, 1999 (Kröncke et al, 1998(Kröncke et al, , 2001Kröncke, Reiss, & Dippner, 2013), in the German Bight (Neumann, Ehrich, & Kröncke, 2008;Shojaei et al, 2016), and in the Wadden Sea (Beukema, Essink, & Dekker, 2000…”

“…The NAO index provides a good summary of general weather patterns influencing marine ecosystems and affecting the abundance, biomass, growth, and survival rates of marine organisms (Drinkwater et al, 2003;Fromentin & Planque, 1996;Kröncke, Dippner, Heyen, & Zeiss, 1998;Shojaei et al, 2016). Several studies have highlighted the consequences of changes in meteorological parameters and, thus, of NAO on (a) zooplankton communities in the western Mediterranean (Fernández de Puelles, Valencia, & Vincent, 2004); the North Atlantic and the North Sea (Fromentin & Planque, 1996); (b) fisheries in the NW Mediterranean Sea (Lloret, Lleonart, Sole, & Fromentin, 2001); (c) recruitment of anchovy (Santojanni et al, 2006) in the Adriatic Sea; (d) physical condition of migratory bullet tuna stock during pre-and postreproductive movement (Muñoz-Expósito et al, 2017) in the western Mediterranean; and (e) benthic macrofauna composition in the North Sea (Hagberg & Tunberg, 2000;Kröncke et al, 1998Kröncke et al, , 2011Kröncke, Zeiss, & Rensing, 2001;Rees et al, 2006;Shojaei et al, 2016;Tunberg & Nelson, 1998). Between 1978and 1995, Kröncke et al (1998 seasonally sampled five sites located between 12 and 20 m depth off the Island of Norderney.…”

Shifts in trait-based and taxonomic macrofauna community structure along a 27-year time-series in the south-eastern North Sea

“…However, for the hydroclimatic shift in 2014 no congruent changes in taxonomic and trait-based structures were found. The regimes and shifts in taxonomic and trait-based long-term variability, found in the study area, corresponded to shifts and changes, which were detected in the whole marine and North Sea ecosystem [49, 94, 95].…”

“…Significant long-term changes to taxonomic community variability in marine ecosystems have been documented worldwide [41–43], including in North Sea pelagic [44–46] and benthic [47–49] communities.…”