Spatial distribution of zoobenthos (sponges, echinoderms) in the wider Weddell Sea (Antarctica) with links to ArcGIS map packages

• Main Authors: Teschke, Katharina, Pehlke, Hendrik, Brey, Thomas
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2019
• Subjects: Antarctica; AWI_FuncEco; Development of a CCAMLR Marine Protected Area in the Antarctic Weddell Sea; Echinodermata; File content; File format; File name; File size; Functional Ecology @ AWI; Marine Protected Area (MPA); Model; Porifera; Uniform resource locator/link to file; Weddell Sea; Wider_Weddell_Sea_Antarctica_Zoobenthos; WSMPA; Antarc*; Antarctic; Berichte zur Polarforschung; Brunt Ice Shelf; Ice Shelf; Larsen Ice Shelf; Polar Biology; Polar Research; Polarforschung; Reports on polar research; Riiser Larsen Ice Shelf; Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.899645; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899645

Here we provide two ArcGIS map packages with georeferenced files on the spatial distribution of sponges and echinoderms in the wider Weddell Sea (Antarctica), which were created in the context of the development of a marine protected area (MPA) in the Weddell Sea. Sponges: The map of interpolated occurrence of sponges is based on quantitative abundance data (Gerdes 2014 a - o) and on semi-quantitative data obtained by W. Arntz (retired; formerly AWI) (see Teschke & Brey 2019a for presence / absence records of the latter dataset). The abundance data were classified to be merged with the semi-quantitative data and an inverse distance weighted method was performed on the united dataset. Areas with very common occurrence of sponges occurred on the shelf near Brunt Ice Shelf along Riiser - Larsen Ice Shelf to Ekstrøm Ice Shelf. Echinoderms: A cluster analysis with species x station datasets of asteroids (Teschke & Brey 2019b), ophiuroids (Teschke & Brey 2019c) and holothurians (Gutt et al. 2014) from the Antarctic Weddell Sea indicated a particular cold-water echinoderm fauna on the Filchner shelf. We approximated this potential habitat by bottom temperature ≤ -1°, based on seawater temperature data from the Finite Element Sea Ice - Ocean Model provided by R. Timmermann (AWI). More information on the spatial analysis is given in working paper WG-EMM-16/03 submitted to the CCAMLR Working Group on Ecosystem Monitoring and Management (available at https://www.ccamlr.org/en/wg-emm-16).