ORCID
- A. McQuatters-Gollop: 0000-0002-6043-9563
Abstract
The Northeast Atlantic, a highly productive maritime area, has been exposed to a wide range of direct human pressures, such as fishing, shipping, coastal development, pollution, and non-indigenous species (NIS) introductions, in addition to anthropogenically-driven global climate change. Nonetheless, this regional sea supports a high diversity of species and habitats, whose functioning provides a variety of ecosystem services, essential for human welfare. In 2017, OSPAR, the Northeast Atlantic Regional Seas Commission, delivered an assessment of marine biodiversity for the Northeast Atlantic. This assessment examined biodiversity indicators separately to identify changes in Northeast Atlantic biodiversity, but stopped short of determining the status of biodiversity for many species and habitats. Here, we expand on this work and for the first time, a semi-quantitative approach is applied to evaluate holistically the state of Northeast Atlantic marine biodiversity across marine food webs, from plankton to top predators, via fish, pelagic and benthic habitats, including xeno-biodiversity (i.e. NIS). Our analysis reveals widespread degradation in marine ecosystems and biodiversity, particularly for marine birds and coastal bottlenose dolphins, as well as for benthic habitats and fish in some regions. The poor biodiversity status of these ecosystem components is likely the result of cumulative effects of human activities, such as habitat destruction or disturbance, overexploitation, eutrophication, the introduction of NIS, and climate change. Bright spots are also revealed, such as recent signs of recovery in some fish and marine bird communities and recovery in harbour and grey seal populations and the condition of coastal benthic communities in some regions. The status of many indicators across all ecosystem components, but particularly for the novel pelagic habitats, food webs and NIS indicators, however, remains uncertain due to gaps in data, unclear pressure-state relationships, and the non-linear influence of some pressures on biodiversity indicators. Improving monitoring and data access and increasing understanding of pressure-state relationships, including those that are non-linear, is therefore a priority for enabling future assessments, as is consistent and stable resourcing for expert involvement.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2022-01-01
Publication Title
Ecological Indicators
Volume
141
ISSN
1470-160X
Acceptance Date
2022-07-03
Deposit Date
2022-08-23
Embargo Period
2022-08-24
Funding
The authors of this paper are grateful to the networks of scientific experts who have enabled and progressed this work, to the OSPAR ICG-COBAM and BDC members and convenors, to the OSPAR secretariat, and to sunny bar and restaurant terraces across Europe which facilitated development of these indicators by fuelling discussions with wine and cheese. Benthic, food web, and pelagic authors are grateful to funding received from European Maritime and Fisheries Fund for the “Applying an Ecosystem Approach to (sub) Regional Habitat Assessments (EcApRHA): Addressing gaps in biodiversity indicator development for the OSPAR Region from data to ecosystem assessment”, grant number: 11.0661/2015/712630/SUB/ENVC.2 OSPAR. AM-G is supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R002738/1) Knowledge Exchange fellowship scheme. AA, LG, SE, NN, GS, and IR received funding from the French Ministry of Environment, Energy, and the Sea (MEEM), the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS-INEE, CNRS-INSU). LFA was partly supported by a CNRS-INSU - MEEM convention n° 2101893310 for the MSFD implementation in France. AG and VD received funding from the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. CPL received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 869300.
Keywords
Food webs, Indicators, Holistic assessment, Ecosystem approach, Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Anthropogenic pressures
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
McQuatters-Gollop, A., Guérin, L., Arroyo, N., Aubert, A., Artigas, L., Bedford, J., Corcoran, E., Dierschke, V., Elliott, S., Geelhoed, S., Gilles, A., González-Irusta, J., Haelters, J., Johansen, M., Le, L., Lynam, C., Niquil, N., Meakins, B., Mitchell, I., Padegimas, B., Pesch, R., Preciado, I., Rombouts, I., Safi, G., Schmitt, P., Schückel, U., Serrano, A., Stebbing, P., De, l., & Vina-Herbon, C. (2022) 'Assessing the state of marine biodiversity in the Northeast Atlantic', Ecological Indicators, 141. Available at: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109148
