10.3389/fmars.2018.00460
https://zenodo.org/records/2645184
oai:zenodo.org:2645184
Morato, Telmo
Telmo
Morato
Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Instituto do Mar, OKEANOS Research Unit, Universidade dos Açores, Horta, Portugal
Pham, Christopher K
Christopher K
Pham
Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Instituto do Mar, OKEANOS Research Unit, Universidade dos Açores, Horta, Portugal
Pinto, Carlos
Carlos
Pinto
ICES Secretariat, Copenhagen, Denmark
Golding, Neil
Neil
Golding
South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, Stanley, Falkland Islands
Ardron, Jeff A
Jeff A
Ardron
Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
Duràn Muñoz, Pablo
Pablo
Duràn Muñoz
Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo, Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Vigo, Spain
Neat, Francis
Francis
Neat
Marine Scotland Science Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
A Multi Criteria Assessment Method for Identifying Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the North-East Atlantic
Zenodo
2018
vulnerable marine ecosystems
deep-sea
multi-criteria assessment
cold-water corals
deep-sea sponges
European Union (EU)
Horizon 2020
Grant Agreement No 679849
Deep-sea Sponge Grounds Ecosystems of the North Atlantic: an integrated approach towards their preservation and sustainable exploitation
SponGES
Grant Agreement No 678760
A transatlantic assessment and deep-water ecosystem-based spatial management plan for Europe
ATLAS
2018-12-13
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.00460/full#h7
https://zenodo.org/communities/sponges
https://zenodo.org/communities/atlas
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
In international fisheries management, scientific advice on the presence of “vulnerable marine ecosystems” (VMEs) per United Nations resolutions, has generally used qualitative assessments based on expert judgment of the occurrence of indicator taxa such as cold-water corals and sponges. Use of expert judgment alone can be criticized for inconsistency and sometimes a lack of transparency; therefore, development of robust and repeatable numeric methods to detect the presence of VMEs would be advantageous. Here, we present a multi-criteria assessment (MCA) method to evaluate how likely a given area of seafloor represents a VME. The MCA is a taxa-dependent spatial method that accounts for both the quantity and data quality available. This was applied to a database of records of VMEs built, held and compiled by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). A VME index was generated which ranged from 1.51 to 4.52, with 5.0 being reserved for confirmed VME habitats. An index of confidence was also computed that ranged from 0.0 to 0.75, with 1 being reserved for those confirmed VME habitats. Overall the MCA captured the important elements of the ICES VME database and provided a simplified, spatially aggregated, and weighted estimate of how likely a given area is to contain VMEs. The associated estimate of confidence gave an indication of how uncertain that assessment was for the same given area. This methodology provides a more systematic and standardized approach for assessing the likelihood of presence of VMEs in the North-East Atlantic.
TM was supported by Program Investigador FCT (IF/01194/2013), IFCT Exploratory Project (IF/01194/2013/CP1199/CT0002) from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (POPH and QREN), PO2020 MapGes (Acores-01-0145-FEDER-000056), and also acknowledge funds provided by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through the strategic project (FCT/UID/MAR/04292/2013) granted to MARE. PDM was supported by IEO project ECOPESLE-2, FN was supported by Scottish Government Project ST0150 (MOREDEEP). This work contributes to the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 678760 (ATLAS) and no. 679849 (SponGES). This output reflects only the author's view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
679849
Deep-sea Sponge Grounds Ecosystems of the North Atlantic: an integrated approach towards their preservation and sustainable exploitation
European Commission
10.13039/501100000780
678760
A Trans-AtLantic Assessment and deep-water ecosystem-based Spatial management plan for Europe