Search

Marine spatial planning that addresses ocean climate-driven change ('climate-smart MSP') is a global aspiration to support economic growth, food security and ecosystem sustainability. Ocean climate change ('CC') modelling may become a key decision-support tool for MSP, but traditional modelling analysis and communication challenges prevent their broad uptake. We employed MSP-specific ocean climate modelling analyses to inform a real-life MSP process; addressing how nature conservation and fisheries could be adapted to CC. We found that the currently planned distribution of these activities may become unsustainable during the policy's implementation due to CC, leading to a shortfall in its sustainability and blue growth targets. Significant, climate-driven ecosystem-level shifts in ocean components underpinning designated sites and fishing activity were estimated, reflecting different magnitudes of shifts in benthic versus pelagic, and inshore versus offshore habitats. Supporting adaptation, we then identified: CC refugia (areas where the ecosystem remains within the boundaries of its present state); CC hotspots (where climate drives the ecosystem towards a new state, inconsistent with each sectors' present use distribution); and for the first time, identified bright spots (areas where oceanographic processes drive range expansion opportunities that may support sustainable growth in the medium term). We thus create the means to: identify where sector-relevant ecosystem change is attributable to CC; incorporate resilient delivery of conservation and sustainable ecosystem management aims into MSP; and to harness opportunities for blue growth where they exist. Capturing CC bright spots alongside refugia within protected areas may present important opportunities to meet sustainability targets while helping support the fishing sector in a changing climate. By capitalizing on the natural distribution of climate resilience within ocean ecosystems, such climate-adaptive spatial management strategies could be seen as nature-based solutions to limit the impact of CC on ocean ecosystems and dependent blue economy sectors, paving the way for climate-smart MSP.

Understanding how different drivers shape relationships between abundance and body mass (size spectra) is important for understanding trophic and competitive interactions in food webs and for predicting the effects of human pressures. Here, we sample seabed communities from small polychaetes (1 kg) in the Celtic Sea and the western English Channel to examine how bottom trawling and primary production affect their size spectra and to compare these with predictions from a model that couples predator and detritivore communities. Size spectra were not well approximated by linear fits because of truncation of the size spectra of detritivores. Low primary production resulted in lower abundance of benthic fauna. Bottom trawling reduced the abundance of predators and large detritivores but allowed small detritivores to increase in abundance. These empirical size spectra were partly consistent with predictions from the size spectra model, showing that understanding the structuring of benthic communities requires a consideration of both size and functional group. The findings highlight the need for an ecosystem approach to understanding the effects of exploitation and climate change on marine ecosystems. La comprehension de l'incidence de differents facteurs sur les relations entre l'abondance et la masse corporelle (spectres de tailles) est importante pour bien comprendre les interactions trophiques et concurrentielles au sein des reseaux trophiques et pour predire les effets des pressions d'origine humaine. Nous echantillonnons des communautes du fond marin allant de petits polychetes (1 kg) dans la mer Celte et la Manche occidentale, afin d'examiner l'incidence du chalutage de fond et de la production primaire sur leurs spectres de tailles et de comparer ces derniers aux predictions d'un modele qui jumelle les communautes de predateurs et de detritivores. Les spectres de tailles ne sont pas bien approximes par des fonctions lineaires en raison de la troncation des spectres de tailles des detritivores. Une faible production primaire se traduit par une plus faible abondance de la faune benthique. Le chalutage de fond reduit l'abondance des predateurs et des grands detritivores, mais permet une augmentation de l'abondance des petits detritivores. Ces spectres de tailles empiriques concordent en partie avec des predictions tirees du modele de spectres de tailles, ce qui demontre que la comprehension de la structuration des communautes benthiques necessite la prise en consideration de la taille et du groupe fonctionnel. Ces resultats mettent en relief la necessite d'une approche ecosystemique pour comprendre les effets de l'exploitation et des changements climatiques sur les ecosystemes marins. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Marine ecosystems are subject to a range of anthropogenic pressures, many of which are increasing in intensity and occurrence (Lotze et al. 2006; Poloczanska et al. 2013). Two important [...]

The Western Channel Observatory (WCO) comprises a series of pelagic, benthic and atmospheric sampling sites within 40 km of Plymouth, UK, that have been sampled by the Plymouth institutes on a regular basis since 1903. This longevity of recording and the high frequency of observations provide a unique combination of data; for example temperature data were first collected in 1903, and the reference station L4, where nearly 400 planktonic taxa have been enumerated, has been sampled on a weekly basis since 1988. While the component datasets have been archived, here we provide the first summary database bringing together a wide suite of the observations. This provides monthly average values of some of the key pelagic and benthic measurements for the inshore site L4 (50 ∘ 15.00 ′ N, 4 ∘ 13.02 ′ W; approx. depth 55 m), the offshore site E1 (50 ∘ 02.00 ′ N, 4 ∘ 22.00 ′ W; approx. depth 75 m) and the intermediate L5 site (50 ∘ 10.80 ′ N, 4 ∘ 18.00 ′ W; approx. depth 58 m). In brief, these data include the following: water temperature (from 1903); macronutrients (from 1934); dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (from 2008); methane and nitrous oxide (from 2011); chlorophyll a (from 1992); high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-derived pigments (from 1999); <20 µm plankton by flow cytometry, including bacteria (8 functional groups from 2007); phytoplankton by microscopy (6 functional groups from 1992); microplankton and mesozooplankton from FlowCam (6 groups from 2012); Noctiluca sp. dinoflagellate (from 1997); mesozooplankton by microscopy (8 groups from 1988); Calanus helgolandicus egg production rates (from 1992); fish larvae from the Young Fish Trawl survey (4 groups from 1924); benthic macrofauna (4 groups from 2008); demersal fish (19 families from 2008); blue shark, Prionace glauca (from 1958); and 16S alpha diversity for sediment and water column (from 2012). These data have varying coverage with respect to time and depth resolution. The metadata tables describe each dataset and provide pointers to the source data and other related Western Channel Observatory datasets and outputs not compiled here. We provide summaries of the main trends in seasonality and some major climate-related shifts that have been revealed over the last century. The data are available from the Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH): 10.17031/645110fb81749 (McEvoy and Atkinson, 2023). Making these data fully accessible and including units of both abundance and biomass will stimulate a variety of uptakes. These may include uses as an educational resource for projects, for models and budgets, for the analysis of seasonality and long-term change in a coupled benthic–pelagic system, or for supporting UK and north-eastern Atlantic policy and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Western Channel Observatory (WCO) comprises a series of pelagic, benthic and atmospheric sampling sites within 40 km of Plymouth UK, which have been sampled by the Plymouth Institutes on a regular basis since 1903. This longevity of recording and the high frequency of observations provide a unique combination of data; for example temperature data were first collected in 1903 and the reference station L4 has been sampled on a weekly basis since 1988 where nearly 400 planktonic taxa have been enumerated. While the component datasets have been archived, here we provide the first summary database bringing together a wide suite of the observations. This provides monthly average values of some of the key pelagic and benthic measurements for the inshore site L4 (50° 15.00' N, 4° 13.02' W approx depth 55 m), the offshore site E1 (50° 02.00' N, 4° 22.00' W approx depth 75 m) and the intermediate L5 site (50° 10.80' N 4° 18.00' W approx depth 58 m. In brief, the data include: water temperature (from 1903); macronutrients (from 1934); dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (from 2008); methane and nitrous oxide (from 2011); chlorophyll a (from 1992); HPLC-derived pigments (from 1999); <20 µm plankton by flow cytometry including bacteria (8 functional groups from 2007); phytoplankton by microscopy (6 functional groups from 1992); microplankton and mesozooplankton from FlowCam (6 groups from 2012), Noctiluca sp. dinoflagellate (from 1997); mesozooplankton by microscopy (8 groups from 1988); Calanus helgolandicus egg production rates (from 1992); fish larvae from Young Fish Trawl survey (4 groups from 1924); benthic macrofauna (4 groups from 2008); demersal fish (19 families from 2008); blue shark, Prionace glauca (from 1958); 16S alpha diversity for sediment and water column (from 2012). These data have varying coverage in time and depth resolution. The metadata tables describe each data set, provide pointers to the source data and other related Western Channel Observatory data sets and outputs not compiled here. We provide summaries of the main trends in seasonality and some major, climate related shifts that have been revealed over the last century. The data are available from Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH) via the link http://doi.org/10.17031/645110fb81749 (McEvoy and Atkinson, 2023). Making the data fully accessible and including units of both abundance and biomass will stimulate a variety of uptakes. These may include uses as an educational resource for projects, for models and budgets or for analysis of seasonality and long-term change in a coupled benthic-pelagic system and for supporting UK and Northeast Atlantic policy and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]