Suchergebnisse

Improving marine resource management and governance requires marrying science and socio-economics, which is key to the development of the Blue Economy. For sustainable growth of the Blue Economy (Blue Growth) to occur, there needs to be robust scientific information on the marine environment, detailed knowledge of activities occurring within ocean space, and comprehensive understanding of environmental impacts. To ensure Blue Growth is sustainable into the future, information is also needed on how the marine environment, activities and impacts may change with time, and at relevant spatial scales. ATLAS, a transAtlantic assessment and deep-water ecosystem-based EU H2020 Project, has undertaken pioneering research to understand the environmental status of the North Atlantic deep sea, and the interaction between Blue Growth scenarios and the marine environment. ATLAS research into North Atlantic Ocean circulation, species and habitat connectivity shows that the North Atlantic is changing, which will impact Blue Growth. As marine industries move progressively offshore, ATLAS work on defining elements of Good Environmental Status for deep-water ecosystems will improve the understanding of Blue Growth interactions with the deep-sea. Potential trade-offs to maintain ecosystem services at a sea-basin scale have also been explored through a selection of 12 ATLAS case studies. ATLAS interactions with industry have highlighted opportunities and challenges for Blue Economy sectors, particularly in the context of marine spatial planning. Through interviews, questionnaires and workshops, ATLAS has discussed key scientific findings and Blue Growth scenarios with 10 major Blue Economy sectors and many supporting sectors. This work illustrates the complexities of Blue Growth in the North Atlantic, including spatial needs, synergies and conflicts, and data sharing opportunities. ATLAS-industry dialogue also highlights differences in Blue Economy sectoral expectations, and levels of understanding relating to new policy instruments.

ABSTRACT. The deep sea plays a critical role in global climate regulation through uptake and storage of heat and carbon dioxide. However, this regulating service causes warming, acidification and deoxygenation of deep waters, leading to decreased food availability at the seafloor. These changes and their projections are likely to affect productivity, biodiversity and distributions of deep-sea fauna, thereby compromising key ecosystem services. Understanding how climate change can lead to shifts in deep-sea species distributions is critically important in developing management measures. We used environmental niche modelling along with the best available species occurrence data and environmental parameters to model habitat suitability for key cold-water coral and commercially important deep-sea fish species under present-day (1951–2000) environmental conditions and to project changes under severe, high emissions future (2081–2100) climate projections (RCP8.5 scenario) for the North Atlantic Ocean. Our models projected a decrease of 28%–100% in suitable habitat for cold-water corals and a shift in suitable habitat for deep-sea fishes of 2.0°–9.9° towards higher latitudes. The largest reductions in suitable habitat were projected for the scleractinian coral Lophelia pertusa and the octocoral Paragorgia arborea, with declines of at least 79% and 99% respectively. We projected the expansion of suitable habitat by 2100 only for the fishes Helicolenus dactylopterus and Sebastes mentella (20%–30%), mostly through northern latitudinal range expansion. Our results projected limited climate refugia locations in the North Atlantic by 2100 for scleractinian corals (30%–42% of present-day suitable habitat), even smaller refugia locations for the octocorals Acanella arbuscula and Acanthogorgia armata (6%–14%), and almost no refugia for P. arborea. Our results emphasize the need to understand how anticipated climate change will affect the distribution of deep-sea species including commercially important fishes and foundation ...