Published November 18, 2020 | Version v1
Dataset Open

North Atlantic basin-scale multi-criteria assessment database to inform management recommendations to protect Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems

Creators

  • 1. OKEANOS, University of the Azores
  • 2. Department of Biology, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
  • 3. Department of Biology, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
  • 4. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo, Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain
  • 5. Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland
  • 6. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Santander, Santander, Spain
  • 7. Earth and Ocean Sciences, NUI Galway, Ireland
  • 8. MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Germany
  • 9. School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
  • 10. Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, NS, Canada
  • 11. IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, Plouzané, France
  • 12. P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, Moscow, Russia
  • 13. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Baleares, Palma, Spain
  • 14. Center for Marine Science, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC, USA
  • 15. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Centro Oceanográfico de Málaga, Málaga, Spain
  • 16. Marine Laboratory, Marine Scotland Science, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Description

We applied the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) multi criteria assessment (MCA) method for identifying VMEs in the North-East Atlantic (ICES, 2016a,b; Morato et al., 2018) from ATLAS VME database to provide the first North Atlantic Ocean basin-scale VME assessment. This MCA is a taxa-dependent spatial method that incorporates the fact that not all VME indicators have the same vulnerability to human impacts, and thus should not be weighted equally. By including a measure of the confidence associated with each VME record, this methodology also considers some of the uncertainties associated with the sampling methodologies, the reported taxonomy, and data quality issues. Equally important, this dataset highlights areas in the North Atlantic that have been poorly sampled and that require further attention. Finally, this methodology also allows for the evaluation and comparison of the VME likelihood with spatial fisheries data that may directly generate significant adverse impacts on VMEs. In the data report, we made the “North Atlantic basin-scale VME index dataset” publicly, thus allowing its consultation and use by scientists, managers, or other relevant stakeholders.

Notes

This work contributes to the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 678760 (ATLAS). This output reflects only the authors' views and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. 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). TM, CKP, LF, CDC, LR, JMGI, GHT, and MCS also acknowledge funds provided by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the plurennial strategic project (UIDB/05634/2020) granted to Okeanos.

Files

North_Atlantic VME_Index.zip

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Additional details

Funding

European Commission
ATLAS – A Trans-AtLantic Assessment and deep-water ecosystem-based Spatial management plan for Europe 678760