How well do we know the infaunal biomass of the continental shelf?

Powell, Eric N.; Mann, Roger

doi:10.1016/j.csr.2016.01.001

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Other sampling approaches for benthic fauna, such as grab samples or box cores, have proven to be insufficient replacements for sampling macrobenthic species such as Atlantic surfclams because those gears underestimate Atlantic surfclam abundance and biomass (Powell and Mann 2016; Powell et al. 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Repercussions of Offshore Wind Energy Development in the Northeast United States for the Atlantic Surfclam Survey and Population Assessment

et al. 2023

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The Atlantic surfclam Spisula solidissima fishery, which spans the U.S. Northeast continental shelf, is among the most exposed to offshore wind energy development impacts because of the overlap of fishing grounds with wind energy lease areas, the hydraulic dredges used by the fishing vessels, and the location of vessel home ports relative to the fishing grounds. The Atlantic surfclam federal assessment survey is conducted using a commercial fishing vessel in locations that overlap with the offshore wind energy development. Once wind energy turbines, cables, and scour protection are installed, survey operations within wind energy lease areas may be curtailed or eliminated due to limits on vessel access, safety requirements, and assessment survey protocols. The impact of excluding the federal assessment survey from wind energy lease areas was investigated using a spatially explicit, agent‐based modeling framework that integrates Atlantic surfclam stock biology, fishery captain and fleet behavior, and federal assessment survey and management decisions. Simulations were designed to compare assessment estimates of spawning stock biomass (SSB) and fishing mortality (F) for scenarios that excluded the survey from (1) wind energy lease areas or (2) wind energy lease areas and potential wind energy lease areas (“call areas”). For the most restricted scenario, the simulated stock assessment estimated 17% lower SSB relative to an unrestricted survey, placing it below the SSB target. The simulated F increased by 7% but was still less than the accepted F threshold. Changes in biological reference points were driven by the inability to access the Atlantic surfclam biomass within the wind energy lease areas. Deviations in reference points reflected the proportion of the population excluded from the survey. Excluding the Atlantic surfclam assessment surveys from the regions designated for offshore wind development can alter long‐term stock assessments by increasing uncertainty in metrics that are used to set fishing quotas.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Repercussions of Offshore Wind Energy Development in the Northeast United States for the Atlantic Surfclam Survey and Population Assessment

et al. 2023

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“…In addition, biomass can be used to evaluate the temporal consistency of modern observed patterns through time, such as the gradient of increasing benthic biomass (gC/m 2 ; Wei et al . ; Powell & Mann ); the established relationships between benthic productivity and nutrient availability (Grebmeier et al . ; Martin ); and the patterns and processes of ecological succession (Nilsson & Rosenberg ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lawton 1990;Payne & Finnegan 2006;Heim et al 2015), and the trophic structure of recent and ancient assemblages (Walker 1972;Powell et al 2001). In addition, biomass can be used to evaluate the temporal consistency of modern observed patterns through time, such as the gradient of increasing benthic biomass (gC/m 2 ; Wei et al 2010;Powell & Mann 2016); the established relationships between benthic productivity and nutrient availability (Grebmeier et al 1988;Martin 1996); and the patterns and processes of ecological succession (Nilsson & Rosenberg 2000). Each question and pattern listed here could not be answered without the added insights of biomass, production, and energetics and suggest new paradigms could arise from the fossil record and palaeoecological approaches.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating fossil biomass from skeletal mass in marine invertebrates

Meadows

2019

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Palaeoecology uses the numerical abundance and the occurrence of species to evaluate the dynamics of past communities, but biomass – the quantity of soft tissue – is the critical currency needed to capture the flow and role of nutrients in modern ecosystems. Acquiring biomass data from fossil assemblages has, however, remained challenging, thus limiting the analysis of net secondary production in palaeocommunities. Prior models relate shell size or shell biovolume to fossil biomass. These models neglect shell fragments and, moreover, use units of biovolume (cm3) that are not directly related to those of biomass (g), making the models difficult to tune and the coefficients highly specific. To remedy these shortcomings, I evaluate skeletal mass as a means of estimating the soft tissue biomass of fossil taxa, using ratios among biomass, skeletal mass and the total wet mass of living representatives of extant species, so that skeletal mass alone can be used to estimate grams of organic biomass. Data on total wet mass, organic carbon mass, and shell mass were acquired from more than 80 live‐collected individuals from eight families in three major, shelly macrobenthic groups (Mollusca, Brachiopoda, Arthropoda) and supplemented with counterpart data from the literature to increase taxonomic breadth. This new shell‐mass model provides more accurate and precise biomass estimates than models based on the linear dimensions of shells, expanding our ability to examine the interplay between organisms and their environments.

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“…Similarly, the microbenthic assemblages in the northern Bering Sea are attributed to local high primary productivity and flux to the benthos (Grebmeier et al 1988(Grebmeier et al , 1989 Reports describing abundance of large clams on Arctic shelves are not well ensconced in the literature-should they be? Descriptions of the benthic communities are a function of the gear used to sample them (Powell & Mann 2016, Powell et al 2017. Is the latter problematic in the current context?…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In a survey of the standing stock of Spisula polynyma [now Mactromeris polynyma (Stimpson, 1860)] along the southeastern Bering Sea, Hughes and Bourne (1981) estimated approximately 330,000 tonnes of biomass in the 6,800 km 2 surveyed area, which translates to approximately 0.2 clams m -2 . To survey this high biomass, large-bodied but relatively sparse clam, Hughes and Bourne used a hydraulic dredge, the necessary gear type for a species like this (Powell & Mann 2016). In addition, some, large infaunal bivalves can dig deep into the sediments and close their valves [extreme examples include Arctica (Taylor 1976), Tagelus (Frey 1968), Ensis (Winter et al 2012), and, in the current context, Mya (Zaklan & Ydenberg 1997)], thus escaping surface sampling.…”

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confidence: 99%