Unraveling the effects of environmental drivers and spatial structure on benthic species distribution patterns in Eurasi
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Unraveling the effects of environmental drivers and spatial structure on benthic species distribution patterns in Eurasian‑Arctic seas (Barents, Kara and Laptev Seas) Miriam L. S. Hansen1 · Dieter Piepenburg1,2,3 · Dmitrii Pantiukhin4 · Casper Kraan2,3,5 Received: 15 May 2020 / Revised: 14 August 2020 / Accepted: 27 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In times of accelerating climate change, species are challenged to respond to rapidly shifting environmental settings. Yet, faunal distribution and composition are still scarcely known for remote and little explored seas, where observations are limited in number and mostly refer to local scales. Here, we present the first comprehensive study on Eurasian-Arctic macrobenthos that aims to unravel the relative influence of distinct spatial scales and environmental factors in determining their large-scale distribution and composition patterns. To consider the spatial structure of benthic distribution patterns in response to environmental forcing, we applied Moran’s eigenvector mapping (MEM) on a large dataset of 341 samples from the Barents, Kara and Laptev Seas taken between 1991 and 2014, with a total of 403 macrobenthic taxa (species or genera) that were present in ≥ 10 samples. MEM analysis revealed three spatial scales describing patterns within or beyond single seas (broad: ≥ 400 km, meso: 100–400 km, and small: ≤ 100 km). Each scale is associated with a characteristic benthic fauna and environmental drivers (broad: apparent oxygen utilization and phosphate, meso: distance-to-shoreline and temperature, small: organic carbon flux and distance-to-shoreline). Our results suggest that different environmental factors determine the variation of Eurasian-Arctic benthic community composition within the spatial scales considered and highlight the importance of considering the diverse spatial structure of species communities in marine ecosystems. This multiple-scale approach facilitates an enhanced understanding of the impact of climate-driven environmental changes that is necessary for developing appropriate management strategies for the conservation and sustainable utilization of Arctic marine systems. Keywords Multivariate community analysis · Environmental factors · Macrobenthos · Spatial structure · Moran’s eigenvector mapping · Eurasian-Arctic
Introduction Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02737-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Miriam L. S. Hansen [email protected]‑kiel.de 1
Institute of Ecosystem Research, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, 24118 Kiel, Germany
2
Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Alfred Wegener Institute, 27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
3
Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg, 23129 Oldenburg, Germany
4
Institute of Earth Sciences, Saint Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg 199034, Russia
5
Institute of Sea Fisherie
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