Morrison, Katelin M
Meyer, Heidi Kristina
Roberts, Emyr Martyn
Rapp, Hans Tore
Colaço, Ana
Pham, Christopher Kim
2020-12-23
<p>ABSTRACT</p>
<p>Few studies have described the effects of physical disturbance and post-recovery of deep-sea benthic communities. Here, we explore the status of deep-sea sponge ground communities four years after being impacted by an experimental bottom trawl. The diversity and abundance of epibenthic megafauna of two distinct benthic communities in disturbed versus control areas were surveyed using a remotely operated vehicle on the Schulz Bank, Arctic Ocean. Four years after disturbance, megafaunal densities of the shallow (∼600 m depth) and deep (∼1,400 m depth) sites were significantly lower on the disturbed patches compared to the control areas. Multivariate analyses revealed a distinct separation between disturbed and control communities for both sites, with trawling causing 29–58% of the variation. Many epibenthic morphotypes were significantly impacted by the trawl, including ascidians, <em>Geodia parva</em>, Hexactinellida spp., <em>Craniella infrequens</em>, <em>Lissodendoryx complicata</em>, <em>Haliclonia</em> sp. <em>Stylocordyla borealis</em>, <em>Gersemia rubiformis</em> and <em>Actiniaria</em> sp. However, we found some smaller morphospecies to be equally abundant with control transects, including <em>Polymastia thielei</em>, <em>Geodia hentscheli</em>, and <em>Stelletta rhaphidiophora</em>, reflecting lower trawl impact for these morphotypes. Overall, our results suggest that these are fragile ecosystems that require much more time than four years to recover from physical disturbance typical of trawling activities.</p>
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to the SponGES team for their guidance, advice on our study design, and help with epifaunal morphospecies identification in the image data. Thanks to the IMAR staff for providing office space and resources. And thanks to the G.O.Sars crew, AEGIR6000 crew, and science team that carried out the ROV surveys. Finally, we would like to dedicate this contribution to our friend and colleague Hans Tore Rapp.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
CP and KM conceived and carried out the study. HM, ER, and HR advised on identification of species and analysis methods. KM analyzed the data, wrote the manuscript, and prepared the figures. All authors revised drafts of the manuscript and gave final approval for publication.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.605281/full#supplementary-material
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.605281
oai:zenodo.org:4522055
Zenodo
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.605281/full#h7
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.605281/full#supplementary-material
https://zenodo.org/communities/eu
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, 605281, (2020-12-23)
recovery
fishing
sponge ground
trawling
seamount
Arctic mid-ocean ridge
deep sea
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
The First Cut Is the Deepest: Trawl Effects on a Deep-Sea Sponge Ground Are Pronounced Four Years on
info:eu-repo/semantics/article