Ecological theory and continental margins: where shallow meets deep

Levin, Lisa A.; Dayton, Paul K.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2009.04.012

Cited by 178 publications

(118 citation statements)

References 94 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

115

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These include broad expanses of organic-rich sediment, low O 2 zones and OMZs, seamounts, banks, ridges, fjords, canyons, basins, coral and sponge reefs, organic falls, and areas of methane seepage. This heterogeneity supports the biodiversity responsible for a whole host of ecosystem functions and services (Levin and Dayton, 2009;Thurber et al, 2014). Because of the shallower depth of continental margin habitats and closer connections with land compared to abyssal habitats, continental margin ecosystems are likely to experience a greater degree of change in all environmental parameters compared to the abyssal seafloor (Tables 2, 3).…”

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Margin habitats are noted for dense, high biomass aggregations of structure-forming species, such as coldwater coral (CWC) reefs and coral 'garden' habitats (Coleman and Williams, 2002;Roberts et al, 2006;Levin and Dayton, 2009;Buhl-Mortensen et al, 2010;De Leo et al, 2010). CWC structures provide shelter from predation for a variety of fauna and, as such, can act as nursery grounds for commercially important species (Koslow et al, 2000, Baillon et al, 2012Henry et al, 2013).…”

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hypoxia expansion over methane seeps may inhibit oxidizing symbionts that support dense mussel and tubeworm aggregations. These chemosynthetic aggregations typically enhance production and biodiversity on margins (Levin and Dayton, 2009;Cordes et al, 2010), and can provide critical nursery habitats . In contrast, hypoxia-tolerant taxa (e.g., squid and jellyfish) may expand their population sizes and distributions with consequences for food-web structure and pelagic-benthic coupling (Gilly et al Single stressors like warming will limit tolerance windows for other stressors such as low O 2 or low pH (Pörtner and Knust, 2007;Pörtner, 2012).…”

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems

Sweetman

Thurber

Smith

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

Self Cite

283

297

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The deep sea encompasses the largest ecosystems on Earth. Although poorly known, deep seafloor ecosystems provide services that are vitally important to the entire ocean and biosphere. Rising atmospheric greenhouse gases are bringing about significant changes in the environmental properties of the ocean realm in terms of water column oxygenation, temperature, pH and food supply, with concomitant impacts on deep-sea ecosystems. Projections suggest that abyssal (3000-6000 m) ocean temperatures could increase by 1°C over the next 84 years, while abyssal seafloor habitats under areas of deep-water formation may experience reductions in water column oxygen concentrations by as much as 0.03 mL L -1 by 2100. Bathyal depths (200-3000 m) worldwide will undergo the most significant reductions in pH in all oceans by the year 2100 (0.29 to 0.37 pH units). O 2 concentrations will also decline in the bathyal NE Pacific and Southern Oceans, with losses up to 3.7% or more, especially at intermediate depths. Another important environmental parameter, the flux of particulate organic matter to the seafloor, is likely to decline significantly in most oceans, most notably in the abyssal and bathyal Indian Ocean where it is predicted to decrease by 40-55% by the end of the century. Unfortunately, how these major changes will affect deep-seafloor ecosystems is, in some cases, very poorly understood. In this paper, we provide a detailed overview of the impacts of these changing environmental parameters on deep-seafloor ecosystems that will most likely be seen by 2100 in continental margin, abyssal and polar settings. We also consider how these changes may combine with other anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing, mineral mining, oil and gas extraction) to further impact deep-seafloor ecosystems and discuss the possible societal implications.

show abstract

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Seafloor Ecosystem Changes Under Future Climate Change Scenamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Major impacts of climate change on deep-sea benthic ecosystems

Sweetman

Thurber

Smith

et al. 2017

Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene

Self Cite

283

297

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Marine benthic environments worldwide are in serious decline as a result of the synergistic effects of overfishing, pollution, mechanical habitat destruction, introduced species and climate change (Fosså et al 2002, Halpern et al 2008, Jackson 2008, Levin & Dayton 2009). In many benthic communities (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hierarchical segmentation-based software for cover classification analyses of seabed images (Seascape)

Teixidó¹,

Albajes‐Eizagirre²,

Bolbo³

et al. 2011

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An important aspect of marine research is to quantify the areal coverage of benthic communities. It is technically feasible to efficiently obtain images of marine environments at different depths and benthic habitats over large spatial and temporal scales. Currently, there is a large and growing library of digital images to analyze, representing a valuable benthic ecological archive. Benthic coverage is the basis of studies on biodiversity, characterization of communities and evaluation of changes over temporal and spatial scales. However, there is still a lack of automatic or semi-automatic analytical methods for deriving ecologically relevant data from these images. We introduce a software program named Seascape to obtain semi-automatically segmented images (patch outlines) from underwater photographs of benthic communities, where each individual patch (species/categories) is routinely associated to its area cover and perimeter. Seascape is an analog to the classical and better known discipline of landscape ecology approach, which focuses on the concept that communities can be observed as a patch mosaic at any scale. The process starts with a hierarchical segmentation, using a color space criteria adapted to the problem of segmenting complex benthic images. As an endproduct, we obtain a set of images segmented into classified homogenous regions at different resolution levels (hierarchical segmentation). To illustrate the versatility and capacity of Seascape, we analyzed 4 digital images from different habitats and depths: coral reefs (Pacific Ocean), coralligenous communities (NW Mediterranean Sea), deep-water coral reefs (NW Mediterranean Sea) and the Antarctic continental shelf (Weddell Sea). The development of this semi-automatic outline tool and its use for classification constitute an important step forward in the analysis and processing time of underwater seabed images at any scale.

show abstract

“…Usually they occur on continental margins and topographical highs from polar to tropical latitudes, and reaching depths greater than 1000 m (Roberts et al, 2009;Levin and Dayton, 2009). Collectively called "Deep Water" Corals (DWC) or Cold Water Corals (CWC), these include stony corals (Scleractinia), gorgonians, sea fans, bamboo corals and black corals (Antipatharia), and hydrocorals (Stylasteridae).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%