ORCID
- Kerry L. Howell: 0000-0003-3359-1778
Abstract
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has become a priority for many states wanting to develop national blue economy plans and meet international obligations in response to the increasing cumulative impacts of human activities and climate change. In areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), MSP is proposed as part of a package of solutions for multi-sectoral management at the ocean basin scale. To facilitate planning, maps showing the spatial distribution of marine biological diversity are required. In areas lacking data, like the South Atlantic, environmental proxies can be used to predict these distributions. We undertook broad-scale benthic habitat classification of the South Atlantic, employing two top-down approaches spanning from national waters to ABNJ. The first was non-hierarchical and clustered groups of environmental variables prior to combination; the second was hierarchical and clustered Principal Components of environmental variables. Areas of agreement between the two approaches were identified and results compared with existing national and global classifications and published biodiversity patterns. We highlight several habitat classes we can be cautiously confident represent variation in biological diversity, such as topographic features, frontal systems and some abyssal basins. We also identify critical gaps in our knowledge of regional biogeography and advocate for collaborative effort to compile benthic species records and promote further exploration of the region to address these gaps. These insights into the distribution of habitats have the potential to support sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, enable transboundary and ocean basin scale management, and empower nations to make progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2023-01-01
Publication Title
Progress in Oceanography
Volume
214
ISSN
0079-6611
Acceptance Date
2023-03-12
Deposit Date
2024-06-19
Funding
The authors acknowledge with thanks support from: the UKRI GCRF funded One Ocean Hub [Grant NE/S008950/1] (KM, KH, JB, KS, LA, JC, DJ and AL); the EU HORIZON 2020 funded Mission Atlantic [Grant Agreement No 862428] (KH, KS, NP, TG, VS, TF, PM, MAG); the Cefas Seedcorn Program [SCN775] and the University of Plymouth (AB); the UK Government Blue Belt Programme (JB); SAERI and Consolidated Fisheries Ltd (TP); the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq [Grant 306633/2019-1](JB), [Grant 313241/2021-0] (MAG); the CSIC Grupos (OD); FBIP SeaMap project [NRF Grant Number 138572] (LA); the ACEP Deep Connections project [NRF Grant Number 129216] (KS); and the NERC funded CLASS [Grant NE/R015953/1] and TerraFIRMA [Grant NE/W004895/1] projects. The aforementioned funding sources had no involvement in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, or manuscript writing.
Additional Links
Keywords
Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, Bioregionalisation, Classification systems, Habitat, Habitat mapping, Seafloor mapping, Spatial distribution
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
McQuaid, K., Bridges, A., Howell, K., Gandra, T., de Souza, V., Currie, J., Hogg, O., Pearman, T., Bell, J., Atkinson, L., Baum, D., Bonetti, J., Carranza, A., Defeo, O., Furey, T., Gasalla, M., Golding, N., Hampton, S., Horta, S., Jones, D., Lombard, A., Manca, E., Marin, Y., Martin, S., Mortensen, P., Passadore, C., Piechaud, N., Sink, K., & Yool, A. (2023) 'Broad-scale benthic habitat classification of the South Atlantic', Progress in Oceanography, 214. Available at: 10.1016/j.pocean.2023.103016
