Marine Ecosystems of the World

A global biogeographic regionalization of the benthic ocean

“…Important boundaries have since been refined and further described (Briggs and Bowen 2012;Briggs 1995). More quantitative approaches were introduced to delineate regions based on species distributions (Kreft and Jetz 2010) and environmental data (Oliver et al 2004), and have seen substantial development in marine biogeography (Zhao and Costello 2020;Costello et al 2017;Woolley et al 2020). While quantitative species-based regionalizations offer methodological transparency and utility, they also rely on globally comprehensive species information that is not readily available because the distribution information remains lacunar and geographically biased, especially at the global scale (Hughes et al 2021;Lenoir et al 2020;Meyer et al 2015;Miloslavich et al 2018;Oliver et al 2021;Troudet et al 2017).…”

“…In marine environments, global biogeographic regionalizations have so far mostly characterized epipelagic and coastal environments (Duffy 2021;Zhao and Costello 2020). The major efforts by Longhurst (2007) and Reygondeau et al (2013) linked oceanographic knowledge with ecology, and divided the global ocean into 57 biogeochemical provinces.…”

The Fishes of the Gulf of Guinea Oceanic Islands

“…A marine ecosystem can be defined as the geographic area (of any size), comprised of communities of organisms and their environment, where biological and energy interactions are greater within than with adjacent ecosystems (Zhao and Costello 2020). This biological system is characterized by two factors: the biotic (e.g., plants, animals, microbes) and abiotic (e.g., sunlight, oxygen, dissolved nutrients, depth, temperature).…”