Marine long-term biodiversity assessment suggests loss of rare species in the Skagerrak and Kattegat region

Abstract

Studies of cumulative and long-term effects of human activities in the ocean are essential for developing realistic conservation targets. Here, we report the results of a recent national marine biodiversity inventory along the Swedish West coast between 2004 and 2009. The expedition revisited many historical localities that have been sampled with the same methods in the early twentieth century. We generated comparable datasets from our own investigation and the historical data to compare species richness, abundance, and geographic distribution of diversity. Our analysis indicates that the benthic ecosystems in the region have lost a large part of its original species richness over the last seven decades. We find evidence that especially rare species have disappeared. This process has caused a more homogenized community structure in the region and diminished historical biodiversity hotspots. We argue that the contemporary lack of rare species in the benthic ecosystems of the Kattegat and Skagerrak offers less opportunity to respond to environmental perturbations in the future and suggest improving the poor representation of rare species in the region. The study shows the value of biodiversity inventories as well as natural history collections in investigations of accumulated effects of anthropogenic activities and for re-establishing species-rich, productive, and resilient ecosystems.

Significant taxon sampling gaps in DNA databases limit the operational use of marine macrofauna metabarcoding

“…Valid and important reasons to continue with this method include the fact that the continuity of data enables tracking changes over time (Obst et al 2018), but there are major Communicated by K. Kocot Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-020-01093-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. challenges associated with this approach, including increasing lack of taxonomic expertise, lack of taxonomic literature for large areas of the world, subjective and inconsistent taxonomy, and cryptic diversity (Knowlton 1993;Schander and Willassen 2005;Ellingsen et al 2017).…”

Assessing the Impact of Physical and Anthropogenic Environmental Factors in Determining the Habitat Suitability of Seagrass Ecosystems

“…Climate change and anthropogenic pressures have degraded and restricted the productivity of many marine and coastal ecosystems, with ocean warming, acidification, increased coastal erosion, Sustainability 2020, 12, 8302; doi:10.3390/su12208302 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability and loss of biodiversity now prominent issues facing society [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. With at least a billion people expected to live within the lower-elevation coastal zone by 2060 [8] and with limited funding to tackle such environmental challenges [9], there persists a need to explore opportunities for marine and coastal ecosystem services.…”

Six decades of change in pollution and benthic invertebrate biodiversity in a southern New England estuary

“…Estuarine functions are affected when benthic species losses lead to less food available for fishes, fewer large bioturbators, fewer suspension feeders, loss of reef or mat habitat, or collapse of biological interactions (Goulletquer et al, 2014). Loss of rare species reduces ecosystem functioning, productivity, and the ability to respond to environmental perturbations (Micheli and Halpern, 2005;Mouillat et al, 2013, Obst et al, 2017. Long-term benthic community studies have contributed to an understanding of how the sum of multiple anthropogenic factors over long periods of time have adversely affected biodiversity.…”

“…Long-term benthic community studies have contributed to an understanding of how the sum of multiple anthropogenic factors over long periods of time have adversely affected biodiversity. Factors implicated include eutrophication and hypoxia (Kemp et al, 2005;Pranovi et al, 2008;Reise et al, 2008;Kraan et al, 2011), warming waters (Callaway et al, 2007;Shojaei et al, 2016), commercial fishing (Callaway et al, 2007;Trott, 2016), contaminants and combinations of these (Obst et al, 2017). Benthic communities are good integrators of these cumulative stressors (Obst et al, 2017).…”

“…Factors implicated include eutrophication and hypoxia (Kemp et al, 2005;Pranovi et al, 2008;Reise et al, 2008;Kraan et al, 2011), warming waters (Callaway et al, 2007;Shojaei et al, 2016), commercial fishing (Callaway et al, 2007;Trott, 2016), contaminants and combinations of these (Obst et al, 2017). Benthic communities are good integrators of these cumulative stressors (Obst et al, 2017). This article describes how species biodiversity and community composition of the softbottom benthic invertebrate macrofaunal community of Narragansett Bay has changed over the past six decades and relates changes, where possible, to anthropogenic drivers.…”