RRS "Charles Darwin" Cruise 150, 22 Aug - 15 Sep 2003. Benthic ecology and biogeochemistry of the Pakistan Margin

RRS Charles Darwin cruise 150 forms part of a larger programme of research (“Benthic processes in the Arabian Sea: interrelationships between benthos, sediment, biogeochemistry and organic matter cycling”, NER/A/S/2000/01280), focusing on the benthic biogeochemistry of the Pakistan Margin, that includes four cruises in total (CD145, 146, 150 and 151). The primary objectives of the present cruise were: a) to revisit a series of five previously established study sites (A140, A300, A950, A1200 and A1850) spanning the Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) as it impinges on the seabed at the Pakistan Margin; b) to assess the chemical oceanography of the water column overlying these sites, through CTD sensor profiles and chemical determinations on water bottle samples from both the CTD and BBLS; c) to initiate a programme of detailed seabed sampling at these sites to determine a suite of biological, chemical and biogeochemical parameters using a Megacorer and a multicorer; d) to assess and sample the megabenthos of these sites by the combined use of trawling (Agassiz trawl) and seabed photography (WASP); e) as possible, to carry out similar operations at a site located at a depth between A300 and A950; f) as possible, to provide additional general characterization of the seabed in the area of these sites using acoustic remote sensing (EM12 and 3.5 kHz ) and seabed imagery (WASP ).The cruise successfully achieved all of the planned objectives. The effort of assessing the science of the cruise will take many months of work ashore. Of those parameters that could be initially assessed onboard there was little indication of major change between cruises 145 and 150, other than in the OMZ itself. Minimum oxygen values encountered during cruise 145 were around 400m, but during the present cruise were in the 150-200m range. If a value of 0.5 ml/l is used as a boundary, then it had shallowed from c. 180m (CD145) to c. 80m (CD150). There also appeared to be some elevation of the lower boundary of the OMZ, although this was less marked

RRS "Discovery" Cruise 282, 30 Jun - 01 Aug 2003. The environment and ecology of Seine and Sedlo Seamounts, NE Atlantic

The general aim of the cruise is to undertake a range of physical, chemical and biological investigations on and around Seine and Sedlo Seamounts. Specific objectives for the cruise included: a) the recovery of two current meter moorings from Seine Seamount (originally deployed from FS Poseidon in March 2004); b) to make underway observations of upper water column currents and zooplankton migrations (using ADCPs and 10 kHz echosounder); c) to assess water column hydrography, primary production and biogeochemistry through deployments of a CTD and water bottle rosette; d) to assess the biochemistry and biogeochemistry of suspended particulate matter by the use of SAPS (stand alone pumping system); e) to investigate the taxonomy, ecology and biogeochemistry of zooplankton communities using a multiple opening and closing net system (MOCNESS); f) to make photographic (stills and video) observations of the seabed and its larger fauna (megabenthos) using the SOC SHRIMP system (Seabed High Resolution Imaging Platform); and g) to carry out a suite of seabed sampling (coring, dredging and trawling) to investigate the taxonomy, ecology and biogeochemistry of seabed communities. The latter objective was immediately precluded by the unavailability of either the coring or trawl winches for the duration of this cruise. Only limited SHRIMP operations and no MOCNESS operations were undertaken at Sedlo Seamount as a result of the failure of the electro-optical tow winch. All other cruise objectives were fully achieved

RRS Discovery Cruise 248, 07 Jul-10 Aug 2000. A multidisciplinary study of the environment and ecology of deep-water coral ecosystems and associated seabed facies and features (The Darwin Mounds, Porcupine Bank and Porcupine Seabight)

RRS Discovery Cruise 248 aimed to carry out a multidisciplinary study of the environment and ecology of deep-water coral ecosystems and associated seabed features in the northeast Atlantic. The study was primarily focused on the Darwin Mounds area, northern Rockall Trough (59° 49’N, 07° 22’W), but also examined a number of sites in the Porcupine Seabight area. The cruise was divided into two legs (Govan-Stornoway, 8 Jul-21 Jul 2000; Stornoway-Southampton, 22 Jul-10 Aug 2000). Leg 1 focused on the ecology of the Darwin Mounds area, with seabed photographic surveys (SOC SHRIMP system), coring (Box and Multiple cores) and trawling (Agassiz) forming the main activities. Leg 2 began with detailed geological investigations of the Darwin Mounds area, concentrating on piston coring and sidescan sonar surveys. Leg 2 concluded with combined ecological and geological studies of carbonate mound sites on the Porcupine Bank and in the Porcupine Seabight.Observations in the Darwin Mounds area confirmed the common occurrence of deep-water corals on these Mounds. The mounds themselves do not appear to be carbonate formations but may be better characterised as sand volcanoes. Numerous xenophyophores were observed in association with the mounds; however, no live specimens were recovered in any of the samples collected. Sidescan sonar images and seabed photography both suggested that the Darwin Mounds area had been subject to considerable commercial trawling with resultant apparent damage to the deep-water coral ecosystems.The various operations undertaken in the Porcupine Seabight area were also successful in imaging giant carbonate mounds and their associated coral communities with both sidescan sonar and seabed photography, and in recovering biological sample material from these areas. In common with the Darwin Mounds area, the observations made suggested that deep-water fishing impacts on coral ecosystems were also evident in this region

RRS Charles Darwin Cruise 101C Leg 2, 14 Jul-20 Aug 1996. Atlantic Margin Environmental Survey: seabed survey of the shelf edge and slope west of Shetland

This was the second of two cruises, the overall objective of which was to undertake an integrated baseline environmental survey of the continental slope west of Shetland. The primary objective of this cruise was to carry out a large-scale seabed sampling survey of the area to the west of Shetland. In total some 200 seabed stations were sampled using either a Megacorer, Box corer or Day grab, and samples collected for the subsequent analysis of macrobenthos, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, particle size and total organic carbon and nitrogen. Additional survey operations included photographic reconnaissance of the seafloor using the SOC WASP system and the collection of demersal fish using pop up fish traps. Shipboard observation of seabed samples suggests that the survey region is very heterogeneous in terms of both sediments (as observed by TOBI sidescan sonar during the preceding cruise) and benthos. Particular features of note include highly developed epifaunal communities on the numerous ice rafted rocks in the 300 - 600m depth range and an abundant population of, apparently, sediment surface dwelling enteropneusts on a sandy contourite sheet located in the mid to north reaches of the survey at depths of 800 - 1000m

Benthic biomass size spectra in shelf and deep-sea sediments

The biomass distributions of marine benthic metazoans (meio- to macro-fauna, 1 ?g–32 mg wet weight) across three contrasting sites were investigated to test the hypothesis that allometry can consistently explain observed trends in biomass spectra. Biomass (and abundance) size spectra were determined from observations made at the Faroe–Shetland Channel (FSC) in the Northeast Atlantic (water depth 1600 m), the Fladen Ground (FG) in the North Sea (150 m), and the hypoxic Oman Margin (OM) in the Arabian Sea (500 m). Observed biomass increased with body size as a power law at FG (scaling exponent, b = 0.16) and FSC (b = 0.32), but less convincingly at OM (b = 0.12 but not significantly different from 0). A simple model was constructed to represent the same 16 metazoan size classes used for the observed spectra, all reliant on a common detrital food pool, and allowing the three key processes of ingestion, respiration and mortality to scale with body size. A micro-genetic algorithm was used to fit the model to observations at the sites. The model accurately reproduces the observed scaling without needing to include the effects of local influences such as hypoxia. Our results suggest that the size-scaling of mortality and ingestion are dominant factors determining the distribution of biomass across the meio- to macrofaunal size range in contrasting marine sediment communities. Both the observations and the model results are broadly in agreement with the "metabolic theory of ecology" in predicting a quarter power scaling of biomass across geometric body size classes

Effectiveness of a deep-sea cold-water coral Marine Protected Area, following eight years of fisheries closure

Pressure on deep-sea ecosystems continues to increase as anthropogenic activities move into ever deeper waters. To mitigate impacts on vulnerable habitats, various conservation measures exist, such as the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). So far, however, little evidence is available about their effectiveness. This paper presents a unique follow-up study assessing the status and recovery of a deep-sea fisheries closure and MPA at ~1000 m water depth in the NE Atlantic, eight years after designation. The Darwin Mounds cold-water coral ecosystem was discovered in 1998, and closed to all bottom contact fisheries, especially trawling, in 2003. Our repeat survey in 2011 used both high-resolution sidescan sonar data collected by Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and video footage from a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to evaluate recovery. The results demonstrate that (1) protection was successful and fishing impact was largely avoided in the Western Darwin Mounds, which contained similar proportions of live cold-water coral occurrence in 2011 as observed in 1998-2000; however (2) the Eastern Darwin Mounds suffered severe damage pre-closure, and by 2011 showed no coral recolonisation and very little regrowth. These results are further evidence for the low resilience and slow recovery potential of deep-sea ecosystems, and underline once again the importance of the precautionary principle in deep-sea conservation

High resolution study of the spatial distributions of abyssal fishes by autonomous underwater vehicle

On abyssal plains, demersal fish are believed to play an important role in transferring energy across the seafloor and between the pelagic and benthic realms. However, little is known about their spatial distributions, making it difficult to quantify their ecological significance. To address this, we employed an autonomous underwater vehicle to conduct an exceptionally large photographic survey of fish distributions on the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (NE Atlantic, 4850?m water depth) encompassing two spatial scales (1–10?km2) on and adjacent to a small abyssal hill (240?m elevation). The spatial distributions of the total fish fauna and that of the two dominant morphotypes (Coryphaenoides sp. 1 and C. profundicolus) appeared to be random, a result contrary to common expectation but consistent with previous predictions for these fishes. We estimated total fish density on the abyssal plain to be 723 individuals km?2 (95% CI: 601–844). This estimate is higher, and likely more precise, than prior estimates from trawl catch and baited camera techniques (152 and 188 individuals km?2 respectively). We detected no significant difference in fish density between abyssal hill and plain, nor did we detect any evidence for the existence of fish aggregations at any spatial scale assessed

Links between deep-sea respiration and community dynamics

It has been challenging to establish the mechanisms that link ecosystem functioning to environmental and resource variation, as well as community structure, composition and compensatory dynamics. A compelling hypothesis of compensatory dynamics, known as 'zero-sum' dynamics, is framed in terms of energy resource and demand units, where there is an inverse link between the number of individuals in a community and the mean individual metabolic rate. However, body-size energy distributions that are non-uniform suggest a niche advantage at a particular size class, which suggests a limit to which metabolism can explain community structuring. Since 1989, the composition and structure of abyssal seafloor communities in the northeast Pacific and northeast Atlantic have varied inter-annually with links to climate and resource variation. Here, for the first time, class and mass-specific individual respiration rates were examined along with resource supply and time series of density and biomass data of the dominant abyssal megafauna, echinoderms. Both sites had inverse relationships between density and mean individual metabolic rate. We found fourfold variation in echinoderm respiration over inter-annual timescales at both sites, which were linked to shifts in species composition and structure. In the north-eastern Pacific, the respiration of mobile surface deposit feeding echinoderms was positively linked to climate-driven particulate organic carbon fluxes with a temporal lag of about one year, respiring about 1-6% of the annual particulate organic carbon flux

Climate change hotspots and implications for the global subsea telecommunications network

A global network of subsea telecommunications cables underpins our daily digital lives, enabling >95% of global digital data transfer, $trillions/day in financial trading, and providing critical communications links, particularly to remote, low-income countries. Despite their importance, subsea cables and their landing stations are vulnerable to damage by natural hazards, including storm surges, waves, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, submarine landslides and ice scour. However, the likelihood or recurrence interval of these types of events will likely change under future projected climate change scenarios, compounded by sea-level rise, potentially increasing hazard severity, creating previously unanticipated hazards, or hazards may shift to new locations during the 20–30-year operational life of cable systems. To date, no study has assessed the wide-reaching impacts of future climate change on subsea cables and landing stations on a global scale. Here, for the first time we synthesize the current evidence base, based on published peer-reviewed datasets, to fill this crucial knowledge gap, specifically to assess how and where future climate change is likely to impact subsea cables and their shore-based infrastructure. We find that ocean conditions are highly likely to change on a global basis as a result of climate change, but the feedbacks and links between climate change, natural processes and human activities are often complicated, resulting in a high degree of geographic variability. We identify climate change ‘hotspots’ (regions and locations likely to experience the greatest impacts) but find that not all areas will be affected in the same manner, nor synchronously by the same processes. We conclude that cable routes should carefully consider locally-variable drivers of hazard frequency and magnitude. Consideration should be given both to instantaneous events (e.g. landslides, tropical cyclones) as well as longer-term, sustained impacts (e.g. seabed currents that circulate even in deep water). Multiple factors can combine to increase the risk posed to subsea cables, hence a holistic approach is essential to assess the compounded effects of both natural processes and human activities in the future