MacroBen integrated database on benthic invertebrates of European continental shelves: a tool for large-scale analysis across Europe

Berghe, E. Vanden; Claus, S.; Appeltans, Ward; Faulwetter, Sarah; Arvanitidis, Christos; Somerfield, PJ; Aleffi, I.F.; Amouroux, J.M.; Anisimova, N.; Bachelet, Guy; Cochrane, S.J.; Costello, M. Joseph; Craeymeersch, Johan; Dahle, S.; Degraer, S.; Denisenko, Stanislav G; Dounas, C.; Duineveld, G.C.A.; Emblow, Chris S.; Escaravage, V.; Fabri, MC; Fleischer, Dirk; Grémare, Antoine; Herrmann, Marko; Hummel, H.; Karakassis, Ioannis; Kędra, Monika; Kendall, Michael A.; Kingston, P. F.; Kotwicki, Lech; Labrune, Céline; Laudien, Jürgen; Nevrova, EL; Occhipinti‐Ambrogi, Anna; Olsgard, F.; Palerud, Rune; Petrov, Alexei; Rachor, Eike; Revkov, N. K.; Rumohr, Heye; Sardá, Rafael; Sistermans, W.C.H.; Speybroeck, Jeroen; Janas, Urszula; Hoey, Gert Van; Vincx, Magda; Whomersley, Paul; Willems, W.; Włodarska‐Kowalczuk, Maria; Zenetos, Argyro; Zettler, Michael L.; Heip, C.H.R.

doi:10.3354/meps07826

Cited by 27 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Databases of the distributions of macrobenthic taxa at much larger spatial scales are available (e.g. Vanden Berghe et al 2009), but such databases lack the standard sampling design present in the North Sea, and so may confound spatial aggregation of sampling effort with spatial aggregation of organisms. This issue seems more likely to mask a real relationship between life history and spatial distribution than to create a false one, however, and so we believe that our results are robust to its effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taxonomy follows the European Register of Marine Species (www.marbef.org/ data/erms.php). More details on taxonomic and additional quality control can be found in the description of the recently completed MacroBen database (Vanden Berghe et al 2009), of which the NSBS forms a part.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leger & Forister (2009) The increasing availability of large databases documenting the abundance and distribution of large numbers of marine species across entire regions (e.g. Vanden Berghe et al 2009), together with rising interest in documenting the biological traits of marine species (e.g. Bremner et al 2003Bremner et al , 2006, means that there is potential for extending the scope of such important comparative analyses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa

Webb¹,

Tyler²,

Somerfield³

2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Progress in marine biodiversity research requires a suite of approaches to understand processes occurring across a broad range of spatial scales. Macroecology provides a useful framework for understanding how local-and regional-scale processes interact, and comparative analyses of residual variation around macroecological relationships offer a promising route to better understand how the biological and ecological traits of individual species influence large-scale patterns in diversity. We combined data on the distribution and abundance of 575 North Sea macrobenthic species with a new species-level biological traits database to determine the effects of life history on the relationship between local population density and regional occupancy. We found the strongest effects were for body size: for a given local population density, larger-bodied species tended to be more widely distributed than smaller-bodied species (controlling for taxonomic affinities between species). This indicates a broad trend for large-bodied species to have relatively less aggregated distributions than smaller-bodied species, and is the first demonstration in marine systems that abundance-occupancy relationships are mediated by body size. We suggest that this effect is most likely due to the interrelationships between body size and other life-history traits that influence the largescale dispersal of individuals, in particular, mode of larval development and adult migratory habit. The ability of a single life-history trait to capture this variation in spatial structure suggests that our approach could relatively easily be applied to more extensive marine data sets in the future.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa

Webb¹,

Tyler²,

Somerfield³

2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…The main characteristics of MacroBen are described in Vanden Berghe et al (2009, this Theme Section) and will not be repeated here. The filtering procedure used during the present study consisted of selecting (1) quantitative data, (2) adult animal taxa, (3) organisms identified to the species level, (4) non-colonial organisms and (5) samples collected after 1980.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of the performances of two biotic indices based on the MacroBen database

Grémare¹,

Labrune²,

Berghe³

et al. 2009

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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The pan-European MacroBen database was used to compare the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and the Benthic Quality Index (BQI ES ), 2 biotic indices which rely on 2 distinct assessments of species sensitivity/tolerance (i.e. AMBI EG and BQI E[S 50 ] 0.05 ) and which up to now have only been compared on restricted data sets. A total of 12 409 stations were selected from the database. This subset (indicator database) was later divided into 4 marine and 1 estuarine subareas. We computed E(S 50 ) 0.05 in 643 taxa, which accounted for 91.8% of the total abundances in the whole marine indicator database. AMBI EG and E(S 50 ) 0.05 correlated poorly. Marked heterogeneities in E(S 50 ) 0.05 between the marine and estuarine North Sea and between the 4 marine subareas suggest that sensitivity/tolerance levels vary among geographical areas. High values of AMBI were always associated with low values of BQI ES , which underlines the coherence of these 2 indices in identifying stations with a bad ecological status (ES). Conversely, low values of AMBI were sometimes associated with low values of BQI ES resulting in the attribution of a good ES by AMBI and a bad ES by BQI ES . This was caused by the dominance of species classified as sensitive by AMBI and tolerant by BQI ES . Some of these species are known to be sensitive to natural disturbance, which highlights the tendency of BQI ES to automatically classify dominant species as tolerant. Both indices thus present weaknesses in their way of assessing sensitivity/tolerance levels (i.e. existence of a single sensitivity/tolerance list for AMBI and the tight relationship between dominance and tolerance for BQI ES ). Future studies should focus on the (1) clarification of the sensitivity/tolerance levels of the species identified as problematic, and (2)

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“…In the NSBP initiative, data from the North Sea from various sources were brought together and analysed jointly. The data management for the NSBP was described in Vanden Berghe et al (2009); the database contains distribution records, taxonomic information, geo-referenced sampling stations and abiotic data (Vanden Berghe et al 2009). Most sampling was done by collecting infauna with grabs of the van Veen type (mostly two grabs of 0.1 m 2 at each station; Rees et al 2007).…”

Section: Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional patterns of continental shelf polychaete diversity: examples for the North Sea, English Channel, Irish Sea and Outer Bristol Channel areas

Quiroz‐Martínez

Schmitt

Dauvin

et al. 2011

Italian Journal of Zoology

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Polychaetes are a well-represented group in most marine and estuarine environments, both in terms of number of individuals and species; they typically constitute a significant percentage of the total macrofaunal diversity. The aim of our analyses was to characterise the biodiversity and regional distribution patterns of polychaete assemblages from the continental shelf (0-200 m) of the North Sea, English Channel and Irish Sea. Variations in depth and local distribution of sediment types, amongst other environmental factors, are the main factors affecting the pattern of distribution of benthic polychaetes. Here we applied and compared different approaches to draw the diversity pattern of this marine invertebrate group on a regional biogeographical scale, and to identify the main factors structuring these patterns.

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MacroBen integrated database on benthic invertebrates of European continental shelves: a tool for large-scale analysis across Europe

Cited by 27 publications

References 47 publications

Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa

Life history mediates large-scale population ecology in marine benthic taxa

Comparison of the performances of two biotic indices based on the MacroBen database

Regional patterns of continental shelf polychaete diversity: examples for the North Sea, English Channel, Irish Sea and Outer Bristol Channel areas

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