Detecting Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the Southern Ocean using research trawls and underwater imagery

A First Approach to Assess the Impact of Bottom Trawling Over Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems on the High Seas of the Southwest Atlantic

“…Instead, it requires a multidisciplinary approach [21,22,47]. From the point of view of management of bottom fisheries and the governance of high seas areas, the situation in the PS poses an added problem as there is no any RFMO in force [2].…”

Bryozoan-dominated benthos of Otago shelf, New Zealand: its associated fauna, environmental setting and anthropogenic threats

“…1) living around bryozoan patches (e.g. Jones & Lockhart 2011), often in concert with other habitat-forming organisms (e.g. sponges, Gutt & Starmans 1998).…”

“…Habitat-forming bryozoans in New Zealand are associated with commercial fishing grounds for finfish (Vooren 1975;Jiang & Carbines 2002;Carbines et al 2004) and shellfish (Cryer et al 2000;Michael & Cranfield 2001;Cranfield et al 2003). Like other biogenic structures, habitat-forming bryozoans are vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts such as pollution (Morgado & Tanaka 2001;Harmelin & Capo 2002), climate warming and ocean acidification (Rodolfo-Metalpa et al 2010), and physical impacts such as bottom fishing (Saxton 1980;Cranfield et al 1999;Jones & Lockhart 2011). The latter is a particular problem in New Zealand waters (Wood et al 2012).…”

Use of AUVs to Inform Management of Deep-Sea Corals

“…There are limited data on the actual distribution and abundance of deep-sea corals and sponges in many regions. Such data sets are in the form of presence-only data (vs. presence-absence) that come as a result of nonsystematic data collection from monitoring, bycatch of fishing operations, research trawl surveys for fisheries objectives, and historical biological surveys, some dating back over a century (see Watling & Auster, 2005;Watling et al, 2011, and references therein;Jones & Lockhart, 2011;Packer et al, 2007, in press).…”

“…There are modern data for coral and sponge species and communities with high spatial resolution but with low spatial extent derived from various research programs (e.g., ICES, 2012;Jones & Lockhart, 2011;Stone, 2006;Waller et al, 2011) using direct underwater observations (e.g., using occupied submersibles, remotely operated vehicles, camera sleds). The spatial extent of these data is often mismatched to the spatial scale of particular human activities, such as where fishing gear is or can be used, and the larger scale that management uses to designate spatial conservation measures (e.g., fishery closed areas, marine protected areas).…”