Abstract
In the past, partitions of the global ocean have been commonly carried out using relatively few environmental or biological variables. Although such partitions are undoubtedly useful on a global scale, we show that, at a basin scale, the use of a large number of biological variables greatly improves the accuracy of a partition. We first determined pelagic habitats using a set of selected environmental variables such as temperature, bathymetry, light at the seabed, sea ice concentration, current velocity and salinity. We then partitioned the North Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas at spatial resolutions of 2° latitude × 2° longitude and 0.5° × 0.5° using biological data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR survey). We used a total of 238 plankton species or taxa sampled between 1946 and 2015 representing more than 60 million data points. Finally, we combined the three biogeographies together to propose a new ecological partition of the North Atlantic and its adjacent seas into Ecological Units (EUs) and ecoregions. The comparison of our partition with the biogeochemical biogeography proposed by Longhurst reveals substantial differences in the location and size of biomes and provinces, especially over the continental shelf. In particular, boundaries of three known biomes (i.e. westerlies, polar and continental shelves biomes) differ substantially from the global-scale classifications.
DOI
10.1016/j.pocean.2019.02.014
Publication Date
2019-04-01
Publication Title
Progress in Oceanography
Volume
173
Publisher
Elsevier
ISSN
0079-6611
Embargo Period
2024-11-22
First Page
86
Last Page
102
Recommended Citation
Beaugrand, G., Edwards, M., & Hélaouët, P. (2019) 'An ecological partition of the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas', Progress in Oceanography, 173, pp. 86-102. Elsevier: Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2019.02.014
