Set of terrain (static in time) and environmental (dynamic in time) variables used as candidate predictors of present-day (1951-2000) and future (2081-2100) suitable habitat of cold-water corals and deep-sea fishes in the North Atlantic

• Main Authors: Wei, Chih-Lin, González-Irusta, José Manuel, Domínguez-Carrió, Carlos, Morato, Telmo
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2020
• Subjects: ATLAS; A Trans-Atlantic assessment and deep-water ecosystem-based spatial management plan for Europe; climate change; Deep-sea; environmental conditions; File format; File name; File size; habitat suitability modelling; North_Atlantic_region; RCP8.5; Uniform resource locator/link to file; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.911117; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.911117

We used environmental niche modelling along with the best available species occurrence data and environmental parameters to model habitat suitability for key cold-water coral and commercially important deep-sea fish species under present-day (1951-2000) environmental conditions and to forecast changes under severe, high emissions future (2081-2100) climate projections (RCP8.5 scenario) for the North Atlantic Ocean (from 18°N to 76°N and 36°E to 98°W). This dataset contains a set of terrain (static in time) and environmental (dynamic in time) variables were used as candidate predictors of present-day (1951-2000) distribution and to forecast future (2081-2100) changes. All predictor variables were projected with the Albers equal-area conical projection centred in the middle of the study area. The terrain variable depth was extracted from a bathymetry grid built from two data sources: the EMODnet Digital Terrain Model (EMODnet, 2018) and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO 2014; Weatherall et al., 2015). Slope (in degrees) was derived from the final bathymetry grid using the Raster package in R (Hijmans, 2016) and the Bathymetric Position Index (BPI) was computed using the Benthic Terrain Model 3.0 tool in ArcGIS 10.1 with an inner radius of 3 and an outer radius of 25 grid cells. In order to avoid extreme values, BPI was standardized using the scale function from the Raster package. Environmental variables of present-day and future conditions, including particulate organic carbon (POC) flux at 100-m depth (epc100, mg C m-2 d-1), bottom water dissolved oxygen concentration (µmol kg-1), pH, and potential temperature (°K) were downloaded from the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) enterprise system. The epc100 was converted to export POC flux at the seafloor using the Martin curve (Martin, Knauer, Karl, & Broenkow, 1987) following the equation: epc = epc100*(water depth/export depth)-0.858, and setting the export depth to 100 m. Near seafloor aragonite (Ωar) and calcite (Ωcal) ...