Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are designed to reduce threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning from anthropogenic activities. Assessment of MPAs effectiveness requires synchronous sampling of protected and non-protected areas at multiple spatial and temporal scales. We used an autonomous und...

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Main Authors: Ferrari, Renata, Marzinelli, Ezequiel Miguel, Ayroza, Camila Rezende, Jordan, Alan, Figueira, Will F., Byrne, Maria, Malcolm, Hamish A., Williams, Stefan B., Steinberg, Peter David
Other Authors: Kalia, Vipin Chandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89349
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44874
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-893492020-09-21T11:31:47Z Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle Ferrari, Renata Marzinelli, Ezequiel Miguel Ayroza, Camila Rezende Jordan, Alan Figueira, Will F. Byrne, Maria Malcolm, Hamish A. Williams, Stefan B. Steinberg, Peter David Kalia, Vipin Chandra Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering Biodiversity Benthic Communities Marine protected areas (MPAs) are designed to reduce threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning from anthropogenic activities. Assessment of MPAs effectiveness requires synchronous sampling of protected and non-protected areas at multiple spatial and temporal scales. We used an autonomous underwater vehicle to map benthic communities in replicate ‘no-take’ and ‘general-use’ (fishing allowed) zones within three MPAs along 7o of latitude. We recorded 92 taxa and 38 morpho-groups across three large MPAs. We found that important habitat-forming biota (e.g. massive sponges) were more prevalent and abundant in no-take zones, while short ephemeral algae were more abundant in general-use zones, suggesting potential short-term effects of zoning (5–10 years). Yet, short-term effects of zoning were not detected at the community level (community structure or composition), while community structure varied significantly among MPAs. We conclude that by allowing rapid, simultaneous assessments at multiple spatial scales, autonomous underwater vehicles are useful to document changes in marine communities and identify adequate scales to manage them. This study advanced knowledge of marine benthic communities and their conservation in three ways. First, we quantified benthic biodiversity and abundance, generating the first baseline of these benthic communities against which the effectiveness of three large MPAs can be assessed. Second, we identified the taxonomic resolution necessary to assess both short and long-term effects of MPAs, concluding that coarse taxonomic resolution is sufficient given that analyses of community structure at different taxonomic levels were generally consistent. Yet, observed differences were taxa-specific and may have not been evident using our broader taxonomic classifications, a classification of mid to high taxonomic resolution may be necessary to determine zoning effects on key taxa. Third, we provide an example of statistical analyses and sampling design that once temporal sampling is incorporated will be useful to detect changes of marine benthic communities across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Published version 2018-05-23T05:10:37Z 2019-12-06T17:23:31Z 2018-05-23T05:10:37Z 2019-12-06T17:23:31Z 2018 Journal Article Ferrari, R., Marzinelli, E. M., Ayroza, C. R., Jordan, A., Figueira, W. F., Byrne, M., et al. (2018). Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle. PLOS ONE, 13(3), e0193711-. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89349 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44874 10.1371/journal.pone.0193711 en PLOS ONE © 2018 Ferrari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 20 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Biodiversity
Benthic Communities
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Benthic Communities
Ferrari, Renata
Marzinelli, Ezequiel Miguel
Ayroza, Camila Rezende
Jordan, Alan
Figueira, Will F.
Byrne, Maria
Malcolm, Hamish A.
Williams, Stefan B.
Steinberg, Peter David
Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
description Marine protected areas (MPAs) are designed to reduce threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning from anthropogenic activities. Assessment of MPAs effectiveness requires synchronous sampling of protected and non-protected areas at multiple spatial and temporal scales. We used an autonomous underwater vehicle to map benthic communities in replicate ‘no-take’ and ‘general-use’ (fishing allowed) zones within three MPAs along 7o of latitude. We recorded 92 taxa and 38 morpho-groups across three large MPAs. We found that important habitat-forming biota (e.g. massive sponges) were more prevalent and abundant in no-take zones, while short ephemeral algae were more abundant in general-use zones, suggesting potential short-term effects of zoning (5–10 years). Yet, short-term effects of zoning were not detected at the community level (community structure or composition), while community structure varied significantly among MPAs. We conclude that by allowing rapid, simultaneous assessments at multiple spatial scales, autonomous underwater vehicles are useful to document changes in marine communities and identify adequate scales to manage them. This study advanced knowledge of marine benthic communities and their conservation in three ways. First, we quantified benthic biodiversity and abundance, generating the first baseline of these benthic communities against which the effectiveness of three large MPAs can be assessed. Second, we identified the taxonomic resolution necessary to assess both short and long-term effects of MPAs, concluding that coarse taxonomic resolution is sufficient given that analyses of community structure at different taxonomic levels were generally consistent. Yet, observed differences were taxa-specific and may have not been evident using our broader taxonomic classifications, a classification of mid to high taxonomic resolution may be necessary to determine zoning effects on key taxa. Third, we provide an example of statistical analyses and sampling design that once temporal sampling is incorporated will be useful to detect changes of marine benthic communities across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
author2 Kalia, Vipin Chandra
author_facet Kalia, Vipin Chandra
Ferrari, Renata
Marzinelli, Ezequiel Miguel
Ayroza, Camila Rezende
Jordan, Alan
Figueira, Will F.
Byrne, Maria
Malcolm, Hamish A.
Williams, Stefan B.
Steinberg, Peter David
format Article
author Ferrari, Renata
Marzinelli, Ezequiel Miguel
Ayroza, Camila Rezende
Jordan, Alan
Figueira, Will F.
Byrne, Maria
Malcolm, Hamish A.
Williams, Stefan B.
Steinberg, Peter David
author_sort Ferrari, Renata
title Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
title_short Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
title_full Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
title_fullStr Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
title_full_unstemmed Large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
title_sort large-scale assessment of benthic communities across multiple marine protected areas using an autonomous underwater vehicle
publishDate 2018
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/89349
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44874
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