Is substrate composition a suitable predictor for deep-water coral occurrence on fine scales?

Bennecke, Swaantje; Meta×as, Anna

doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2017.04.011

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Habitat suitability modelling approaches come with some caveats, and we, therefore, acknowledge multiple common and well-known limitations that may be particularly pronounced when modelling deep-sea taxa. For example, cold-water coral and fish distributions respond to small-scale variation in terrain, such as substrate type and seabed rugosity, as well as local oceanographic conditions such as food availability (Bennecke & Metaxas, 2017;De Clippele et al, 2017;Drazen et al, 2012;Rengstorf et al, 2013;Ross et al, 2015;White et al, 2005). We also recognize some limitations from the quantity, quality and spatial coverage of occurrence data, availability of absence records as well as some uncertainty in deepsea species identification (mostly for cold-water corals Incorporating these needs into the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy can help fill data gaps, and prioritize spatial locations for the collection of key physical and biogeochemical data (Canonico et al, 2019;Levin et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐induced changes in the suitable habitat of cold‐water corals and commercially important deep‐sea fishes in the North Atlantic

Morato

González-Irusta

Domínguez-Carrió

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

136

139

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The deep sea plays a critical role in global climate regulation through uptake and storage of heat and carbon dioxide. However, this regulating service causes warming, acidification and deoxygenation of deep waters, leading to decreased food availability at the seafloor. These changes and their projections are likely to affect productivity, biodiversity and distributions of deep‐sea fauna, thereby compromising key ecosystem services. Understanding how climate change can lead to shifts in deep‐sea species distributions is critically important in developing management measures. We used environmental niche modelling along with the best available species occurrence data and environmental parameters to model habitat suitability for key cold‐water coral and commercially important deep‐sea fish species under present‐day (1951–2000) environmental conditions and to project changes under severe, high emissions future (2081–2100) climate projections (RCP8.5 scenario) for the North Atlantic Ocean. Our models projected a decrease of 28%–100% in suitable habitat for cold‐water corals and a shift in suitable habitat for deep‐sea fishes of 2.0°–9.9° towards higher latitudes. The largest reductions in suitable habitat were projected for the scleractinian coral Lophelia pertusa and the octocoral Paragorgia arborea, with declines of at least 79% and 99% respectively. We projected the expansion of suitable habitat by 2100 only for the fishes Helicolenus dactylopterus and Sebastes mentella (20%–30%), mostly through northern latitudinal range expansion. Our results projected limited climate refugia locations in the North Atlantic by 2100 for scleractinian corals (30%–42% of present‐day suitable habitat), even smaller refugia locations for the octocorals Acanella arbuscula and Acanthogorgia armata (6%–14%), and almost no refugia for P. arborea. Our results emphasize the need to understand how anticipated climate change will affect the distribution of deep‐sea species including commercially important fishes and foundation species, and highlight the importance of identifying and preserving climate refugia for a range of area‐based planning and management tools.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐induced changes in the suitable habitat of cold‐water corals and commercially important deep‐sea fishes in the North Atlantic

Morato

González-Irusta

Domínguez-Carrió

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

136

139

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“…This suggests that although changes in topography are important to assemblage structure, substrate is not enough to adequately model distributions and assemblage structure (sensu Bennecke and Metaxas, 2017b). Even with the addition of hydrographic/productivity/water column data, the DISTLM model does not describe a large part of the variation in assemblage structure (less than 50%).…”

Section: Conclusion and Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fine Scale Assemblage Structure of Benthic Invertebrate Megafauna on the North Pacific Seamount Mokumanamana

et al. 2019

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Changes in benthic megafaunal assemblage structure have been found across gradients of environmental variables for many deep-sea habitats, but patterns remain under-investigated on seamounts. To assess the extent of variability in benthic communities at the scale of within a single seamount, and to assess environmental drivers of assemblage changes, Mokumanamana, also known as Necker Island, a seamount in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument with no known history of human impacts, was surveyed. Replicate 1 km transects were conducted along depth contours at 50 m depth intervals from 200-700 m on three sides of Mokumanamana using the AUV Sentry. Megafaunal abundance and substrate parameters were obtained from 26,119 total images. The dominant megafaunal taxa were sponges, corallimorpharians, cup corals, and benthic ctenophores. Sea pens and alcyonacean octocorals were also abundant. Overall, abundance and diversity of megafauna increased with depth. Beta-diversity through species substitution with depth was very high. Beta-diversity was also high between the sides and likewise defined almost exclusively by species substitution. Crossed ANOSIM by depth and side showed community structure differed on Mokumanamana for both factors. NMDS and cluster analyses of Mokumanamana show nine assemblages that were defined by depth and reflect differences between sides of the seamount. Environmental modeling with DISTLM indicates sediment, oxygen, substrate variability and roughness, POC, and surface currents are correlated with these assemblage differences. These results suggest that microhabitats on seamounts can promote unique assemblages along depth gradients as well as on different sides of a feature, and this diversity may be easily overlooked without fine-scale sampling. These findings have implications for management and conservation of seamounts as well as future ecological studies of seamounts, as seamounts are generally sampled on much coarser spatial scales.

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“…Substrate type is an important variable to consider for CWC distributions. However, full‐coverage substrate type maps are rarely available for deep‐sea regions at appropriate resolutions, which often contributes to low SDMs accuracy (Anderson, Guinotte, Rowden, Clark, et al., 2016; Anderson, Guinotte, Rowden, Tracey, et al., 2016; Bennecke & Metaxas, 2017; Burgos et al., 2020). In this study, substrate type was not included in the final SDMs because detailed substrate type maps or backscatter data were not available for the whole spatial extent of the seamounts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ensemble modelling to predict the distribution of vulnerable marine ecosystems indicator taxa on data‐limited seamounts of Cabo Verde (NW Africa)

Vinha,

Murillo,

Schumacher

et al. 2024

Diversity and Distributions

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AimSeamounts are conspicuous geological features with an important ecological role and can be considered vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs). Since many deep‐sea regions remain largely unexplored, investigating the occurrence of VME taxa on seamounts is challenging. Our study aimed to predict the distribution of four cold‐water coral (CWC) taxa, indicators for VMEs, in a region where occurrence data are scarce.LocationSeamounts around the Cabo Verde archipelago (NW Africa).MethodsWe used species presence–absence data obtained from remotely operated vehicle (ROV) footage collected during two research expeditions. Terrain variables calculated using a multiscale approach from a 100‐m‐resolution bathymetry grid, as well as physical oceanographical data from the VIKING20X model, at a native resolution of 1/20°, were used as environmental predictors. Two modelling techniques (generalized additive model and random forest) were employed and single‐model predictions were combined into a final weighted‐average ensemble model. Model performance was validated using different metrics through cross‐validation.ResultsTerrain orientation, at broad scale, presented one of the highest relative variable contributions to the distribution models of all CWC taxa, suggesting that hydrodynamic–topographic interactions on the seamounts could benefit CWCs by maximizing food supply. However, changes at finer scales in terrain morphology and bottom salinity were important for driving differences in the distribution of specific CWCs. The ensemble model predicted the presence of VME taxa on all seamounts and consistently achieved the highest performance metrics, outperforming individual models. Nonetheless, model extrapolation and uncertainty, measured as the coefficient of variation, were high, particularly, in least surveyed areas across seamounts, highlighting the need to collect more data in future surveys.Main ConclusionsOur study shows how data‐poor areas may be assessed for the likelihood of VMEs and provides important information to guide future research in Cabo Verde, which is fundamental to advise ongoing conservation planning.

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Is substrate composition a suitable predictor for deep-water coral occurrence on fine scales?

Cited by 7 publications

References 47 publications

Climate‐induced changes in the suitable habitat of cold‐water corals and commercially important deep‐sea fishes in the North Atlantic

Climate‐induced changes in the suitable habitat of cold‐water corals and commercially important deep‐sea fishes in the North Atlantic

Fine Scale Assemblage Structure of Benthic Invertebrate Megafauna on the North Pacific Seamount Mokumanamana

Ensemble modelling to predict the distribution of vulnerable marine ecosystems indicator taxa on data‐limited seamounts of Cabo Verde (NW Africa)

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