Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean
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/environ...
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crwiley:10.1002/ece3.5852 2024-09-09T19:59:54+00:00 Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean Ashford, Oliver S. Kenny, Andrew J. Barrio Froján, Christopher R. S. Horton, Tammy Rogers, Alex D. Natural Environment Research Council Horizon 2020 Merton College, University of Oxford 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5852 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.5852 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.5852 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ecology and Evolution volume 9, issue 24, page 14167-14204 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 journal-article 2019 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5852 2024-07-30T04:20:45Z 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 ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Northwest Atlantic Wiley Online Library Ecology and Evolution 9 24 14167 14204 |
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language |
English |
description |
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 ... |
author2 |
Natural Environment Research Council Horizon 2020 Merton College, University of Oxford |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ashford, Oliver S. Kenny, Andrew J. Barrio Froján, Christopher R. S. Horton, Tammy Rogers, Alex D. |
spellingShingle |
Ashford, Oliver S. Kenny, Andrew J. Barrio Froján, Christopher R. S. Horton, Tammy Rogers, Alex D. Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
author_facet |
Ashford, Oliver S. Kenny, Andrew J. Barrio Froján, Christopher R. S. Horton, Tammy Rogers, Alex D. |
author_sort |
Ashford, Oliver S. |
title |
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
title_short |
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
title_full |
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
title_fullStr |
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
title_full_unstemmed |
Investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: A case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean |
title_sort |
investigating the environmental drivers of deep‐seafloor biodiversity: a case study of peracarid crustacean assemblages in the northwest atlantic ocean |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5852 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.5852 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/ece3.5852 |
genre |
Northwest Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Northwest Atlantic |
op_source |
Ecology and Evolution volume 9, issue 24, page 14167-14204 ISSN 2045-7758 2045-7758 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5852 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
24 |
container_start_page |
14167 |
op_container_end_page |
14204 |
_version_ |
1809931000418926592 |