The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition
Establishing management programs to preserve the benthic communities along the NW Pacific and the Arctic Ocean (AO) requires a deep understanding of the composition of communities and their responses to environmental stressors. In this study, we thus examine patterns of benthic community composition...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:21c75465499143d1badd87a9682394b3 2023-05-15T14:48:20+02:00 The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition Hanieh Saeedi Dan Warren Angelika Brandt 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 https://doaj.org/article/21c75465499143d1badd87a9682394b3 EN eng Frontiers Media S.A. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-7745 2296-7745 doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 https://doaj.org/article/21c75465499143d1badd87a9682394b3 Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol 9 (2022) benthic fauna shallow water deep sea community composition depth silicate Science Q General. Including nature conservation geographical distribution QH1-199.5 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 2022-12-31T07:20:31Z Establishing management programs to preserve the benthic communities along the NW Pacific and the Arctic Ocean (AO) requires a deep understanding of the composition of communities and their responses to environmental stressors. In this study, we thus examine patterns of benthic community composition and patterns of species richness along the NW Pacific and Arctic Seas and investigate the most important environmental drivers of those patterns. Overall we found a trend of decreasing species richness toward higher latitudes and deeper waters, peaking in coastal waters of the eastern Philippines. The most dominant taxa along the entire study area were Arthropoda, Mollusca, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Annelida. We found that depth, not temperature, was the main driver of community composition along the NW Pacific and neighboring Arctic Seas. Depth has been previously suggested as a factor driving species distribution in benthic fauna. Following depth, the most influential environmental drivers of community composition along the NW Pacific and the Arctic Ocean were silicate, light, and currents. For example, silicate in Hexactinellida, Holothuroidea, and Ophiuroidea; and light in Cephalopoda and Gymnolaemata had the highest correlations with community composition. In this study, based on a combination of new samples and open-access data, we show that different benthic communities might respond differently to future climatic changes based on their taxon-specific biological, physiological, and ecological characteristics. International conservation efforts and habitat preservation should take an adaptive approach and apply measures that take the differences among benthic communities in responding to future climate change into account. This facilitates implementing appropriate conservation management strategies and sustainable utilization of the NW Pacific and Arctic marine ecosystems. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Arctic Ocean Pacific Frontiers in Marine Science 9 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
benthic fauna shallow water deep sea community composition depth silicate Science Q General. Including nature conservation geographical distribution QH1-199.5 |
spellingShingle |
benthic fauna shallow water deep sea community composition depth silicate Science Q General. Including nature conservation geographical distribution QH1-199.5 Hanieh Saeedi Dan Warren Angelika Brandt The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
topic_facet |
benthic fauna shallow water deep sea community composition depth silicate Science Q General. Including nature conservation geographical distribution QH1-199.5 |
description |
Establishing management programs to preserve the benthic communities along the NW Pacific and the Arctic Ocean (AO) requires a deep understanding of the composition of communities and their responses to environmental stressors. In this study, we thus examine patterns of benthic community composition and patterns of species richness along the NW Pacific and Arctic Seas and investigate the most important environmental drivers of those patterns. Overall we found a trend of decreasing species richness toward higher latitudes and deeper waters, peaking in coastal waters of the eastern Philippines. The most dominant taxa along the entire study area were Arthropoda, Mollusca, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, and Annelida. We found that depth, not temperature, was the main driver of community composition along the NW Pacific and neighboring Arctic Seas. Depth has been previously suggested as a factor driving species distribution in benthic fauna. Following depth, the most influential environmental drivers of community composition along the NW Pacific and the Arctic Ocean were silicate, light, and currents. For example, silicate in Hexactinellida, Holothuroidea, and Ophiuroidea; and light in Cephalopoda and Gymnolaemata had the highest correlations with community composition. In this study, based on a combination of new samples and open-access data, we show that different benthic communities might respond differently to future climatic changes based on their taxon-specific biological, physiological, and ecological characteristics. International conservation efforts and habitat preservation should take an adaptive approach and apply measures that take the differences among benthic communities in responding to future climate change into account. This facilitates implementing appropriate conservation management strategies and sustainable utilization of the NW Pacific and Arctic marine ecosystems. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Hanieh Saeedi Dan Warren Angelika Brandt |
author_facet |
Hanieh Saeedi Dan Warren Angelika Brandt |
author_sort |
Hanieh Saeedi |
title |
The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
title_short |
The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
title_full |
The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
title_fullStr |
The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Environmental Drivers of Benthic Fauna Diversity and Community Composition |
title_sort |
environmental drivers of benthic fauna diversity and community composition |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 https://doaj.org/article/21c75465499143d1badd87a9682394b3 |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Pacific |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Climate change |
op_source |
Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol 9 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-7745 2296-7745 doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 https://doaj.org/article/21c75465499143d1badd87a9682394b3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.804019 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Marine Science |
container_volume |
9 |
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1766319411098025984 |