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Ban, N. C., Maxwell, S. M., Dunn, D. C., Hobday, A. J., Bax, N. J., Ardron, J., et al. (2014). Better integration of sectoral planning and management approaches for the interlinked ecology of the open oceans. Marine Policy, .
Résumé: Open oceans are one of the least protected, least studied and most inadequately managed ecosystems on Earth. Three themes were investigated that differentiate the open ocean (areas beyond national jurisdiction and deep area within exclusive economic zones) from other realms and must be considered when developing planning and management options: ecosystem interactions, especially between benthic and pelagic systems; potential effects of human activities in open oceans on ecological linkages; and policy context and options. A number of key ecological factors differentiate open oceans from coastal systems for planners and managers: (1) many species are widely distributed and, especially for those at higher trophic levels, wide ranging; (2) the sizes and boundaries of biogeographical domains (patterns of co-occurrence of species, habitats and ecosystem processes) vary significantly by depth; (3) habitat types exhibit a wide range of stabilities, from ephemeral (e.g., surface frontal systems) to hyper-stable (e.g., deep sea); and (4) vertical and horizontal linkages are prevalent. Together, these ecological attributes point to interconnectedness between open ocean habitats across large spatial scales. Indeed, human activities – especially fishing, shipping, and potentially deep-sea mining and oil and gas extraction – have effects far beyond the parts of the ocean in which they operate. While managing open oceans in an integrated fashion will be challenging, the ecological characteristics of the system demand it. A promising avenue forward is to integrate aspects of marine spatial planning (MSP), systematic conservation planning (SCP), and adaptive management. These three approaches to planning and management need to be integrated to meet the unique needs of open ocean systems, with MSP providing the means to meet a diversity of stakeholder needs, SCP providing the structured process to determine and prioritise those needs and appropriate responses, and adaptive management providing rigorous monitoring and evaluation to determine whether actions or their modifications meet both ecological and defined stakeholder needs. The flexibility of MSP will be enhanced by the systematic approach of SCP, while the rigorous monitoring of adaptive management will enable continued improvement as new information becomes available and further experience is gained.
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Ben Gharbia, H., Laabir, M., Ben Mhamed, A., Gueroun, S. K. M., Yahia, M. N. D., Nouri, H., et al. (2019). Occurrence of epibenthic dinoflagellates in relation to biotic substrates and to environmental factors in Southern Mediterranean (Bizerte Bay and Lagoon, Tunisia): An emphasis on the harmful Ostreopsis spp., Prorocentrum lima and Coolia monotis. Harmful Algae, 90, 101704.
Résumé: Harmful events associated with epibenthic dinoflagellates, have been reported more frequently over the last decades. Occurrence of potentially toxic benthic dinoflagellates, on the leaves of two magnoliophytes (Cymodocea nodosa and Zostera noltei) and thalli of the macroalgae (Ulva rigida), was monitored over one year (From May 2015 to April 2016) in the Bizerte Bay and Lagoon (North of Tunisia, Southern Mediterranean Sea). The investigated lagoon is known to be highly anthropized. This is the first report on the seasonal distribution of epibenthic dinoflagellates hosted by natural substrates, from two contrasted, adjacent coastal Mediterranean ecosystems. The environmental factors promoting the development of the harmful epibenthic dinoflagellates Ostreopsis spp., Prorocentrum lima and Coolia monotis were investigated. The highest cell densities were reached by Ostreopsis spp. (1.9 x 10(3) cells g(-1) FW, in October 2015), P. lima (1.6 x 10(3) cells g(-1) FW, in June 2015) and C. monotis (1.1 x 10(3) cells g(-1) FW, in May 2015). C. nodosa and Z. noltei were the most favorable host macrophytes for C. monotis (in station L2) and Ostreopsis spp. (in station L3), respectively. Positive correlations were recorded between Ostreopsis spp. and temperature. Densities of the epibenthic dinoflagellates varied according to the collection site, and a great disparity was observed between the Bay and the Lagoon. Maximum concentrations were recorded on C. nodosa leaves from the Bizerte Bay, while low epiphytic cell abundances were associated with macrophytes sampled from the Bizerte Lagoon. The observed differences in dinoflagellate abundances between the two ecosystems (Bay-Lagoon) seemed not related to the nutrients, but rather to the poor environmental conditions in the lagoon.
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Bourgeois, S., Hochard, S., & Pringault, O. (2010). Subtidal microphytobenthos: effects of inorganic and organic compound supplies on migration, production, and respiration in a tropical coastal environment. Aquat. Microb. Ecol., 61(1), 13–29.
Résumé: Microphytobenthos (MPB) is an important primary producer in coastal ecosystems. In oligotrophic environments, its activity may be controlled by the availability of organic or inorganic compounds but also by its migration behavior. The objective of this study was to determine, in MPB-colonized subtidal sediments, the consequences of short-term enrichments (< 24 h) of organic (alanine, glutamate, and glucose) and inorganic (ammonium, phosphate) compounds on MPB vertical migration and metabolisms, net production (NP), areal gross production (AGP), and community respiration (R). Two contrasting stations located in the southwest lagoon of New Caledonia were investigated: 1 under strong anthropogenic influence and 1 under more oceanic influence. Both stations were dominated by epipelic diatoms. Differences in net primary production were explained by diurnal variation of MPB biomass at the sediment surface, showing the importance of MPB migration in the functioning of these subtidal environments. However, a stimulation or inhibition of MPB migration did not necessarily impact the net primary production of the system; this strongly depends upon the interactions between the autotrophic and heterotrophic compartments, the latter being controlled by the environmental conditions. For the station under low anthropogenic influence, AGP and R were both significantly stimulated by alanine, glucose, and ammonium, and significantly inhibited by phosphate. The similar responses of AGP and R to enrichments suggest that autotrophs and heterotrophs were tightly coupled. Conversely, in the station under strong anthropogenic influence, AGP and R responded differently. Addition of ammonium inhibited AGP without having an impact on R, whereas addition of phosphate inhibited R whilst having no measurable effect on AGP. In this station, the coupling between autotrophs and heterotrophs was weakened, suggesting that the carbon demand of the heterotrophic compartment is probably sustained by the supplies of allochthonous organic matter rather than by exudates from the autotrophic compartment.
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Brandt, M., Trouche, B., Henry, N., Liautard-Haag, C., Maignien, L., de Vargas, C., et al. (2020). An Assessment of Environmental Metabarcoding Protocols Aiming at Favoring Contemporary Biodiversity in Inventories of Deep-Sea Communities. Front. Mar. Sci., 7, 234.
Résumé: The abyssal seafloor covers more than 50% of planet Earth and is a large reservoir of still mostly undescribed biodiversity. It is increasingly targeted by resource-extraction industries and yet is drastically understudied. In such remote and hard-to-access ecosystems, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a useful and efficient tool for studying biodiversity and implementing environmental impact assessments. Yet, eDNA analysis outcomes may be biased toward describing past rather than present communities as sediments contain both contemporary and ancient DNA. Using commercially available kits, we investigated the impacts of five molecular processing methods on eDNA metabarcoding biodiversity inventories targeting prokaryotes (16S), unicellular eukaryotes (18S-V4), and metazoans (18S-V1, COI). As the size distribution of ancient DNA is skewed toward small fragments, we evaluated the effect of removing short DNA fragments via size selection and ethanol reconcentration using eDNA extracted from 10 g of sediment at five deep-sea sites. We also compare communities revealed by eDNA and environmental RNA (eRNA) co-extracted from similar to 2 g of sediment at the same sites. Results show that removing short DNA fragments does not affect alpha and beta diversity estimates in any of the biological compartments investigated. Results also confirm doubts regarding the possibility to better describe live communities using eRNA. With ribosomal loci, eRNA, while resolving similar spatial patterns than co-extracted eDNA, resulted in significantly higher richness estimates, supporting hypotheses of increased persistence of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) in the environment and unmeasured bias due to overabundance of rRNA and RNA release. With the mitochondrial locus, eRNA detected lower metazoan richness and resolved fewer spatial patterns than co-extracted eDNA, reflecting high messenger RNA lability. Results also highlight the importance of using large amounts of sediment (>= 10 g) for accurately surveying eukaryotic diversity. We conclude that eDNA should be favored over eRNA for logistically realistic, repeatable, and reliable surveys and confirm that large sediment samples (>= 10 g) deliver more complete and accurate assessments of benthic eukaryotic biodiversity and that increasing the number of biological rather than technical replicates is important to infer robust ecological patterns.
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BRIND'AMOUR, A., LAFFARGUE, P., MORIN, J., VAZ, S., FOVEAU, A., & LE BRIS, H. (2014). Morphospecies and taxonomic sufficiency of benthic megafauna in scientific bottom trawl surveys. Continental Shelf Research, 72, 1–9.
Résumé: Scientific fisheries surveys routinely identify a large diversity of commercial and non-commercial benthic megainvertebrates that could provide useful information for Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) descriptors. Species is obviously the basic taxonomic level to which most ecological studies and theories refer. Identification at this level of organization is indeed always preferred over any other taxonomic level. Nevertheless, aggregation of species to higher taxonomic levels may be unavoidable sometimes, since errors of identification are known or suspected to occur in many surveys. Using analyses of taxonomic sufficiency (identification of organisms at various taxonomic resolutions) and groups of morphospecies (taxa identified easily by non-experts on the basis of evident morphological traits), this study aims to quantify the loss of ecological information incurred by partial identification of benthic megafauna in bottom trawl surveys in order to put such data to good use. The analyses were conducted on five scientific surveys representing a large range of geographical areas (from 150 km2 to 150 000 km2) and environmental conditions. Results show that genus, family and, particularly, morphospecies are good surrogates for species identification in community analyses. We suggest that bottom trawl surveys can provide reliable megafauna data that may usefully complete those obtained by grab surveys. The use of morphospecies could lead to new strategies, combining different datasets to provide indicators for MSFD descriptors (e.g. D6).
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