An ecological status indicator for all time: Are AMBI and M-AMBI effective indicators of change in deep time?

Increasingly environmental management seeks to limit the impacts of human activities on ecosystems relative to some ‘reference’ condition, which is often the presumed pre-impacted state, however such information is limited. We explore how marine ecosystems in deep time (Late Jurassic) are characterised by AZTI's Marine Biotic Index (AMBI), and how the indices responded to natural perturbations. AMBI is widely used to detect the impacts of human disturbance and to establish management targets, and this study is the first application of these indices to a fossil fauna. Our results show AMBI detected changes in past seafloor communities (well-preserved fossil deposits) that underwent regional deoxygenation in a manner analogous to those experiencing two decades of organic pollution. These findings highlight the potential for palaeoecological data to contribute to reconstructions of pre-human marine ecosystems, and hence provide information to policy makers and regulators with greater temporal context on the nature of ‘pristine’ marine ecosystems

Integral assessment of trawling effects in a Mediterranean fishing ground: changes in benthic functional components and consequences for target species

40th CIESM Congress: The largest Forum on Mediterranean and Black Sea Research, 28 October - 1 November 2013, Marseille, FranceLong-term changes in the fishing effort regime may affect both commercial target species and the functionality of benthic ecosystems. This study focuses on changes in benthic infaunal community from a Mediterranean fishing ground that is characterised by a well-defined trawl fleet dynamics tightly related with the main target species in the area: Mullus barbatus. Results suggest that,despite chronic trawling clearly modified the infauna community structure, changes linked to variability in the effort regime over the year are too little to influence M. barbatus population at the within-year time scalePeer Reviewe

Perturbación de la pesca de arrastre en ecosistemas bentónicos y sus consecuencias en las especies comerciales: un caso de estudio en el Mediterráneo Noroccidental

Scientia Marina 78(supplement 1) special volume edited by Jordi Lleonart and Francesc Maynou: The Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.-- 13 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables[EN] Trawling is known to disturb benthic communities and habitats, which may in turn indirectly affect populations of commercial species that live in close association with the seabed. The degree of impact on both benthic communities and demersal species depends on the fishing effort level. This may vary over the year because of the fleet dynamics, which are in turn normally driven by the main target species’ life cycle. In this study we describe changes in benthic functional components of a northwestern Mediterranean fishing ground that represents a recruitment area for an important target species (red mullet, Mullus barbatus). This fishing ground experiences a varying intensity of fishing effort over the year and benthic functional components under different levels of trawling were compared with an unfished, control area. Traits related to sexual maturity and life span for infauna and body size and life span for epifauna were found to vary with fishing activity. Potential effects of these changes on ecological functioning and the impact on red mullet population are discussed. The development of fisheries management plans under an ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM) requires the links between target species and benthic communities’ disturbance due to fishing practices to be explicitly considered[ES] Se sabe que la pesca de arrastre provoca una perturbación en los hábitats y ecosistemas bentónicos, lo cual a su vez puede afectar indirectamente a las poblaciones de especies comerciales que viven en estrecha relación con el fondo marino. El nivel de impacto en las comunidades bentónicas y en las especies comerciales depende en ambos casos del nivel de esfuerzo pesquero. Este esfuerzo puede variar a lo largo del año, ya que la dinámica de la flota está normalmente determinada por el ciclo vital de las especies objetivo. En este estudio se describen cambios en los componentes funcionales del bentos de un caladero del Mediterráneo noroccidental que constituye un área de reclutamiento para una importante especie objetivo como es el salmonete de fango (Mullus barbatus). Este caladero experimenta variaciones de la intensidad de esfuerzo pesquero a lo largo del año. Los componentes funcionales del bentos sometidos a estos niveles variables de esfuerzo fueron comparados con los de una zona control que no está sometida a la pesca. Los resultados muestran que características relacionadas con la madurez sexual y el periodo de vida para la infauna y con el tamaño corporal y el periodo de vida para la epifauna variaron con el esfuerzo pesquero. En el trabajo se discuten los efectos potenciales de estos cambios en la funcionalidad del ecosistema y su impacto en la población de salmonete. Para desarrollar planes de gestión pesquera en el marco de la gestión basada en el ecosistema (EBFM) se requiere que estas relaciones entre la perturbación de las comunidades bentónicas debida a la pesca y las especies objetivo sean claramente consideradasThis study was funded by the EU project RESPONSE (Q5RS-2002-00787) and the COMSOM project (CTM2008-04617). [...] Alba Muntadas was supported by a CSIC JAE_predoc grant cofunded by the European Social Funds and Silvia de Juan was supported by a postdoctoral mobility grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education (Programa nacional de movilidad de recursos humanos del Plan Nacional I+D+i 2008-2011)Peer reviewe

An ex ante ecological economic assessment of the benefits arising from marine protected areas designation in the UK

This paper presents an estimate of the benefits of the proposed designation of a network of marine conservation zones (MCZs) in English territorial and UK offshore waters. This ex ante analysis was undertaken as part of a cost-benefit evidence base to inform implementation of the proposed UK Marine and Coastal Access Bill. This Bill is part of an ambitious plan to designate and manage UK marine areas using an Ecosystems Approach. Benefits are measured in terms of anticipated increases in the value of ecosystem goods and services provisioned by MCZs relative to the counterfactual, i.e. no designation. The principal valuation and thus policy challenge is presented by the need to use benefits transfer in a context where biophysical provisioning functions are not well-developed, where there are gaps in the valuation literature related to temperate marine ecosystem goods and services, and where values (where available) are presented in aggregate terms. This paper develops and applies a methodology that first apportions these aggregate benefits across the diverse range of marine landscapes and habitats and then estimates the marginal benefit of protection. The value of benefits was calculated for three different configurations of MCZs under two different management regimes. We estimate a benefit range from designation of between £10.2 billion and £23.5 billion in present value terms, applying a 3.5% discount rate. The study questions the extent to which a defensible policy evidence base can be developed in the absence of primary valuation data and where benefit estimates are reported in aggregate terms.Marine protected areas Areas valuation Benefits transfer Ecosystem services approach