Biological geography of the European seas: results from the MacroBen database

Abstract

This study examines whether or not biogeographical and/or managerial divisions across the European seas can be validated using soft-bottom macrobenthic community data. The faunal groups used were: all macrobenthos groups, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, sipunculans and the last 5 groups combined. In order to test the discriminating power of these groups, 3 criteria were used: (1) proximity, which refers to the expected closer faunal resemblance of adjacent areas relative to more distant ones; (2) randomness, which in the present context is a measure of the degree to which the inventories of the various sectors, provinces or regions may in each case be considered as a random sample of the inventory of the next largest province or region in a hierarchy of geographic scales; and (3) differentiation, which provides a measure of the uniqueness of the pattern. Results show that only polychaetes fulfill all 3 criteria and that the only marine biogeographic system supported by the analyses is the one proposed by Longhurst (1998). Energy fluxes and other interactions between the planktonic and benthic domains, acting over evolutionary time scales, can be associated with the multivariate pattern derived from the macrobenthos datasets. Third-stage multidimensional scaling ordination reveals that polychaetes produce a unique pattern when all systems are under consideration. Average island distance from the nearest coast, number of islands and the island surface area were the geographic variables best correlated with the community patterns produced by polychaetes. Biogeographic patterns suggest a vicariance model dominating over the founder-dispersal model except for the semi-closed regional seas, where a model substantially modified from the second option could be supported.

Biogeographical patterns of algal communities in the Mediterranean Sea: Cystoseira crinita‐dominated assemblages as a case study

“…Despite this divergence between the northern and southern Balearic Islands, the distances among samples shown by the NMDS did tend to mirror the geographical positions of the regions. Similar findings, showing a high degree of spatial structure of intertidal and sublittoral assemblages at a regional scale, have been reported for the whole of Europe (Arvanitidis et al. , 2009), for the western coast of the USA (Blanchette et al.…”

The emergence of ocean biogeochemical provinces: A quantitative assessment and a diagnostic for model evaluation

“…This issue is related to the determination of correlation length scales for large‐scale biological data, which cannot currently be resolved by means of extensive surveys of the global ocean, so needs to be approached by different methodologies that combine sparse observations with more qualitative information. There have been several attempts at providing a conceptual spatial classification of the marine environment, based mainly on either the distribution of distinct pelagic or benthic taxonomic groups (e.g., the Ocean Biogeographic Information System [ Costello and Vanden Berghe , 2006; Arvanitidis et al , 2009]) or the spatial variability of physical properties, such as temperature, salinity, mixing state and empirically derived chlorophyll concentration and primary production estimates [ Longhurst , 1995; Longhurst et al , 1995; Sathyendranath et al , 1995]. Longhurst 's [2007] partition of the oceans into four major biomes (polar, westerlies, trade winds, tropical), realized as ∼50 ocean provinces (regional expressions of the different biomes), remains the most comprehensive and widely accepted classification of the pelagic ocean.…”

Taxonomic Distinctness of Demersal Fishes of the California Current: Moving Beyond Simple Measures of Diversity for Marine Ecosystem-Based Management

“…In addition, general trends in taxonomic distinctness with latitude and depth have been examined for some marine invertebrate taxa [38]–[40] and demersal fishes [27], [41]. Previous studies of taxonomic distinctness in demersal fishes have been quite focused, limited to a depth range of <570 m and done within a single region spanning less than 1.5° of latitude [27], [41]).…”

“…In the marine environment, taxonomic distinctness has been used as a tool to examine environmental degradation like the effects of trawling [33] , fishing in general (through marine reserve status [34] , pollution [35] , and other anthropogenic impacts [36] , [37] ). In addition, general trends in taxonomic distinctness with latitude and depth have been examined for some marine invertebrate taxa [38] – [40] and demersal fishes [27] , [41] . Previous studies of taxonomic distinctness in demersal fishes have been quite focused, limited to a depth range of <570 m and done within a single region spanning less than 1.5° of latitude [27] , [41] ).…”