Investigating the environmental drivers of deep-seafloor biodiversity: a case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep-seafloor biodiversity: a case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean
The deep-sea benthos covers over 90% of seafloor area and hosts a great diversity of species which contribute toward essential ecosystem services. Evidence suggests that deep-seafloor assemblages are structured predominantly by their physical environment, yet knowledge of assemblage/environment relationships is limited. Here, we utilized a very large dataset of Northwest Atlantic Ocean continental slope peracarid crustacean assemblages as a case study to investigate the environmental drivers of deep-seafloor macrofaunal biodiversity. We investigated biodiversity from a phylogenetic, functional, and taxonomic perspective, and found that a wide variety of environmental drivers, including food availability, physical disturbance (bottom trawling), current speed, sediment characteristics, topographic heterogeneity, and temperature (in order of relative importance), significantly influenced peracarid biodiversity. We also found deep-water peracarid assemblages to vary seasonally and interannually. Contrary to prevailing theory on the drivers of deep-seafloor diversity, we found high topographic heterogeneity (at the hundreds to thousands of meter scale) to negatively influence assemblage diversity, while broadscale sediment characteristics (i.e., percent sand content) were found to influence assemblages more than sediment particle-size diversity. However, our results support other paradigms of deep-seafloor biodiversity, including that assemblages may vary inter- and intra-annually, and how assemblages respond to changes in current speed. We found that bottom trawling negatively affects the evenness and diversity of deep-sea soft-sediment peracarid assemblages, but that predicted changes in ocean temperature as a result of climate change may not strongly influence continental slope biodiversity over human timescales, although it may alter deep-sea community biomass. Finally, we emphasize the value of analyzing multiple metrics of biodiversity and call for researchers to consider an expanded definition of biodiversity in future investigations of deep-ocean life.
benthic ecology, current speed, deep sea, food availability, functional diversity, habitat heterogeneity, macrofauna, Peracarida, phylogenetic diversity, sediment characteristics, temperature, temporal variability, trawling
14167-14204
Ashford, Oliver S.
3708c8fb-49cb-490c-b534-b00fd9c57b3b
Kenny, Andrew J.
ca578559-e62d-449d-9f95-e819d4404166
Barrio Froján, Christopher R.S.
4935e7ee-ac0f-41bd-b00b-2c5806561d74
Horton, Tammy
c4b41665-f0bc-4f0f-a7af-b2b9afc02e34
Rogers, Alex D.
fb474198-f059-48f7-b637-74617b5023f6
December 2019
Ashford, Oliver S.
3708c8fb-49cb-490c-b534-b00fd9c57b3b
Kenny, Andrew J.
ca578559-e62d-449d-9f95-e819d4404166
Barrio Froján, Christopher R.S.
4935e7ee-ac0f-41bd-b00b-2c5806561d74
Horton, Tammy
c4b41665-f0bc-4f0f-a7af-b2b9afc02e34
Rogers, Alex D.
fb474198-f059-48f7-b637-74617b5023f6
Ashford, Oliver S., Kenny, Andrew J., Barrio Froján, Christopher R.S., Horton, Tammy and Rogers, Alex D.
(2019)
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep-seafloor biodiversity: a case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.
Ecology and Evolution, 9 (24), .
(doi:10.1002/ece3.5852).
Abstract
The deep-sea benthos covers over 90% of seafloor area and hosts a great diversity of species which contribute toward essential ecosystem services. Evidence suggests that deep-seafloor assemblages are structured predominantly by their physical environment, yet knowledge of assemblage/environment relationships is limited. Here, we utilized a very large dataset of Northwest Atlantic Ocean continental slope peracarid crustacean assemblages as a case study to investigate the environmental drivers of deep-seafloor macrofaunal biodiversity. We investigated biodiversity from a phylogenetic, functional, and taxonomic perspective, and found that a wide variety of environmental drivers, including food availability, physical disturbance (bottom trawling), current speed, sediment characteristics, topographic heterogeneity, and temperature (in order of relative importance), significantly influenced peracarid biodiversity. We also found deep-water peracarid assemblages to vary seasonally and interannually. Contrary to prevailing theory on the drivers of deep-seafloor diversity, we found high topographic heterogeneity (at the hundreds to thousands of meter scale) to negatively influence assemblage diversity, while broadscale sediment characteristics (i.e., percent sand content) were found to influence assemblages more than sediment particle-size diversity. However, our results support other paradigms of deep-seafloor biodiversity, including that assemblages may vary inter- and intra-annually, and how assemblages respond to changes in current speed. We found that bottom trawling negatively affects the evenness and diversity of deep-sea soft-sediment peracarid assemblages, but that predicted changes in ocean temperature as a result of climate change may not strongly influence continental slope biodiversity over human timescales, although it may alter deep-sea community biomass. Finally, we emphasize the value of analyzing multiple metrics of biodiversity and call for researchers to consider an expanded definition of biodiversity in future investigations of deep-ocean life.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 27 November 2019
Published date: December 2019
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This study was undertaken as part of the “NAFO potential vulnerable marine ecosystems – impacts of deep‐sea fisheries” (NEREIDA) program, which is supported by Spain's General Secretary of the Sea, Spain's Ministry for the Rural and Marine Environment, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, the Geological Survey of Canada, the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the UK's Centre for the Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Russian Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, and the Russian P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. We thank the crew and scientists aboard the Spanish research vessel Miguel Oliver who collected the box core samples analyzed by this study. This research was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) studentship (NE/K006886/1), by Merton College, University of Oxford, UK, and through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 678760 (ATLAS). This output reflects only the authors' views, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Funding Information:
This study was undertaken as part of the ?NAFO potential vulnerable marine ecosystems ? impacts of deep-sea fisheries? (NEREIDA) program, which is supported by Spain's General Secretary of the Sea, Spain's Ministry for the Rural and Marine Environment, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, the Geological Survey of Canada, the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the UK's Centre for the Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Russian Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography, and the Russian P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. We thank the crew and scientists aboard the Spanish research vessel Miguel Oliver who collected the box core samples analyzed by this study. This research was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) studentship (NE/K006886/1), by Merton College, University of Oxford, UK, and through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 678760 (ATLAS). This output reflects only the authors' views, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords:
benthic ecology, current speed, deep sea, food availability, functional diversity, habitat heterogeneity, macrofauna, Peracarida, phylogenetic diversity, sediment characteristics, temperature, temporal variability, trawling
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 479555
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/479555
ISSN: 2045-7758
PURE UUID: 04b71108-7e0b-45fe-a925-eca8501914af
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Date deposited: 26 Jul 2023 16:37
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:11
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Contributors
Author:
Oliver S. Ashford
Author:
Andrew J. Kenny
Author:
Christopher R.S. Barrio Froján
Author:
Tammy Horton
Author:
Alex D. Rogers
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