From microscope to management: The critical value of plankton taxonomy to marine policy and biodiversity conservation

Abstract

Taxonomic information provides a crucial understanding of the most basic component of 22 biodiversity-which organisms are present in a region or ecosystem. Taxonomy, however, is a 23 discipline in decline, at times perceived as 'obsolete' due to technical advances in science, and with 24 fewer trained taxonomists and analysts emerging each year to replace the previous generation as it 25 retires. Simultaneously, increasing focus is turned towards sustainable management of the marine 26 environment using an ecosystem approach, and towards conserving biodiversity, key species, and 27 habitats. Sensitive indicators derived from taxonomic data are instrumental to the successful 28 delivery of these efforts. At the base of the marine food web and closely linked to their immediate 29 environment, plankton are increasingly needed as indicators to support marine policy, inform 30 conservation efforts for higher trophic organisms, and protect human health. Detailed taxonomic 31 data, containing information on the presence/absence and abundance of individual plankton 32 species, are required to underpin the development of sensitive species-and community-level 33 indicators which are necessary to understand subtle changes in marine ecosystems and inform 34 management and conservation efforts. Here the critical importance of plankton taxonomic data is 35 illustrated, and therefore plankton taxonomic expertise, in informing marine policy and conservation 36 and outline challenges, and potential solutions, facing this discipline. 37

Reconstructing three decades of total international trawling effort in the North Sea

“…Hofstede and Daan, 2008; http://www.ices.dk/marine-5 data/data-portals/Pages/DATRAS.aspx), and ICES also holds data on international fisheries landings dating back to the year 1903 (https://www.ices.dk/marine-data/dataset-collections/Pages/Fish-catch-and-stock-assessment.aspx). The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) data provide an excellent source on zooplankton, phytoplankton, and ichthyoplankton data (Lynam et al, 2013;McQuatters-Gollop et al, 2017). With the current contribution these sources are now complemented by a longterm, trawling effort dataset.…”

Climate change may have minor impact on zooplankton functional diversity in the Mediterranean Sea

“…However, as the dynamics of these priority taxa do rely on zooplankton through food‐web interactions, we encourage the inclusion of zooplankton FD as a surveillance indicator to better understand their current distribution and how these may change in the future (Shephard, Greenstreet, Piet, Rindorf, & Dickey‐Collas, ). Adopting zooplankton FD as an indicator within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive would fall in line with an ecosystem‐based management of diversity and ecosystem services (McQuatters‐Gollop et al., ). Our study identifies the copepod species that might be the most affected by climate change in the Mediterranean Sea (Table ).…”

“…This implies that southeastern communities might be particularly at risk because of future diversity losses within lower trophic levels, on top of stronger temperature increase (Adloff et al, 2015), and poor MPA coverage. Our study highlights the urgent need to extend the current MPA network and to include climate-driven changes in the zooplankton in the process for setting realistic and efficient management targets (McQuatters-Gollop et al, 2017). However, the copepod species studied might not be the most suited to set management targets because: (a) none are expected to disappear at the regional scale, (b) they present relatively lower conservation value compared to charismatic taxa (e.g., marine mammals, sea birds or turtles) and (c) they are dispersed over very large scales so their conservation must incorporate complex connectivity patterns that may also be altered in the future (Dubois et al, 2016).…”

Combining Marine Ecology and Economy to Roadmap the Integrated Coastal Management: A Systematic Literature Review

“…As a general consideration, the above-mentioned network component appears as highly segregated from the other ones, which, instead, deal with several typologies of economic activities (compare Figures 5B and 5C): this feature may remark, at the same time, the weak integration of plankton studies in ICM [56,57], and the still not-fully perceived economic risks associated with the proliferation of harmful algal blooms in coastal systems (see, e.g., [58]).…”