Data rescue and re-use: Recycling old information to address new policy concerns

Information on past trends is essential to inform future predictions and underpin attribution needed to drive policy responses. It has long been recognised that sustained observations are essential for disentangling climate-driven change from other regional and local-scale anthropogenic impacts and environmental fluctuations or cycles in natural systems. This paper highlights how data rescue and re-use have contributed to the debate on climate change responses of marine biodiversity and ecosystems. It also illustrates via two case studies the re-use of old data to address new policy concerns. The case studies focus on (1) plankton, fish and benthos from the Western English Channel and (2) broad-scale and long-term studies of intertidal species around the British Isles. Case study 1 using the Marine Biological Association of the UK's English Channel data has shown the influence of climatic fluctuations on phenology (migration and breeding patterns) and has also helped to disentangle responses to fishing pressure from those driven by climate, and provided insights into ecosystem-level change in the English Channel. Case study 2 has shown recent range extensions, increases of abundance and changes in phenology (breeding patterns) of southern, warm-water intertidal species in relation to recent rapid climate change and fluctuations in northern and southern barnacle species, enabling modelling and prediction of future states. The case is made for continuing targeted sustained observations and their importance for marine management and policy development.

The Impact of Offshore Wind Farms on Marine Ecosystems: A Review Taking an Ecosystem Services Perspective

The rapid increase in renewable energy generation from wind has increased concerns about the impacts that wind arrays have on the marine environment and what these impacts mean for society. One method for identifying the impacts of offshore wind farms (OWFs) on human welfare is through the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services. Using an ecosystem services approach, this paper reviews the impacts of OWFs on the ecosystem services delivered by marine environments. During the construction phase, supporting services such as reduced energy capture and nutrient cycling are changed due to the introduction of hard substrate and the reduction in soft sediment habitat at turbine bases. This may lead to changes in all other ecosystem services, both negative and positive. Quantifying these changes, however, is a challenge partly due to data limitations and a lack of clear understanding of the impacts of OWFs on the marine ecosystems. Scientific effort needs to quantitatively explore the impacts of OWFs on ecosystem functionality and the gathering of data that enables the assessment of changes to ecosystem services. Data needed to better quantify and value the impacts of OWFs on ecosystem services are suggested. The development of methods which integrate socioeconomic valuation of ecosystem services into the evaluation of renewable energy devices compliments efforts in assessing the environmental impacts and should enable a holistic assessment of the impact of renewable energy production and greenhouse gas mitigation technologies on the U. K. carbon footprint.

Diet of auklet chicks in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska: similarity among islands, interspecies overlap, and relationships to ocean climate

Seabirds are effective samplers of the marine environment, and can be used to measure resource partitioning among species and sites via food loads destined for chicks. We examined the composition, overlap, and relationships to changing climate and oceanography of 3,216 food loads from Least, Crested, and Whiskered Auklets (Aethia pusilla, A. cristatella, A. pygmaea) breeding in Alaska during 1994–2006. Meals comprised calanoid copepods (Neocalanus spp.) and euphausiids (Thysanoessa spp.) that reflect secondary marine productivity, with no difference among Buldir, Kiska, and Kasatochi islands across 585 km of the Aleutian Islands. Meals were very similar among species (mean Least–Crested Auklet overlap C = 0.68; Least–Whiskered Auklet overlap C = 0.96) and among sites, indicating limited partitioning of prey resources for auklets feeding chicks. The biomass of copepods and euphausiids in Least and Crested Auklet food loads was related negatively to the summer (June–July–August) North Pacific Gyre Oscillation, while in Whiskered Auklet food loads, this was negatively related to the winter (December–January–February) Pacific Decadal Oscillation, both of which track basin-wide sea-surface temperature (SST) anomalies. We found a significant quadratic relationship between the biomass of calanoid copepods in Least Auklet food loads at all three study sites and summer (June–July) SST, with maximal copepod biomass between 3–6°C (r 2 = 0.71). Outside this temperature range, zooplankton becomes less available to auklets through delayed development. Overall, our results suggest that auklets are able to buffer climate-mediated bottom-up forcing of demographic parameters like productivity, as the composition of chick meals has remained constant over the course of our study.

Interference with the germination and growth ofUlvazoospores by quorum-sensing molecules fromUlva-associated epiphytic bacteria

Ulva zoospores preferentially settle on N-acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) producing marine bacterial biofilms. To investigate whether AHL signal molecules also affect the success and rate of zoospore germination in addition to zoospore attraction, the epiphytic bacteria associated with mature Ulva linza were characterized and bacterial isolates representative of this community tested for the ability to produce AHLs. Two of these AHL-producing isolates, Sulfitobacter spp. 376 and Shewanella spp. 79, were transformed with plasmids expressing the Bacillus spp. AHL lactonase gene aiiA to generate AHL-deficient variants. The germination and growth of U. linza zoospores was studied in the presence of these AHL-deficient strains and their AHL-producing counterparts. This revealed that the AHLs produced by Sulfitobacter spp. and Shewanella spp. or the bacterial products they regulate have a negative impact on both zoospore germination and the early growth of the Ulva germling. Further experiments with Escherichia coli biofilms expressing recombinant AHL synthases and synthetic AHLs provide data to demonstrate that zoospores germinated and grown in the absence of AHLs were significantly longer than those germinated in the presence of AHLs. These results reveal an additional role for AHLs per se in the interactive relationships between marine bacteria and Ulva zoospores.

Interactions between multiple large macrofauna species and nematode communities — Mechanisms for indirect impacts of trawling disturbance

Highlights •We exposed meiofauna to 7 different large macrofauna species at high and low densities. •Macrofauna presence altered nematode community structure and reduced their abundance. •Macrofauna species had similar effects by reducing the few dominant nematode species. •Meio–macrofauna resource competition and spatial segregation are the main drivers. •Trawling effects on macrofauna affect nematode communities indirectly. Diverse assemblages of infauna in sediments provide important physical and biogeochemical services, but are under increasing pressure by anthropogenic activities, such as benthic trawling. It is known that trawling disturbance has a substantial effect on the larger benthic fauna, with reductions in density and diversity, and changes in community structure, benthic biomass, production, and bioturbation and biogeochemical processes. Largely unknown, however, are the mechanisms by which the trawling impacts on the large benthic macro- and megafauna may influence the smaller meiofauna. To investigate this, a mesocosm experiment was conducted whereby benthic nematode communities from a non-trawled area were exposed to three different densities (absent, low, normal) of 7 large (> 10 mm) naturally co-occurring, bioturbating species which are potentially vulnerable to trawling disturbance. The results showed that total abundances of nematodes were lower if these large macrofauna species were present, but no clear nematode abundance effects could be assigned to the macrofauna density differences. Nematode community structure changed in response to macrofauna presence and density, mainly as a result of the reduced abundance of a few dominant nematode species. Any detectable effects seemed similar for nearly all macrofauna species treatments, supporting the idea that there may be a general indirect, macrofauna-mediated trawling impact on nematode communities. Explanations for these results may be, firstly, competition for food resources, resulting in spatial segregation of the meio- and macrobenthic components. Secondly, different densities of large macrofauna organisms may affect the nematode community structure through different intensities of bioturbatory disturbance or resource competition. These results suggest that removal or reduced densities of larger macrofauna species as a result of trawling disturbance may lead to increased nematode abundance and hints at the validity of interference competition between large macrofauna organisms and the smaller meiofauna, and the energy equivalence hypothesis, where a trade-off is observed between groups of organisms that are dependent on a common source of energy.