ERI Theme II: Spatial Patterns in Benthic Communities

1. ERI Theme II: Spatial Patterns in Benthic Communities Leads: Peter Lawton (SABS) and Stephen Smith (BIO) Collaborators:Daniel Duplissea (IML); Vlad Kostylev, Brian Todd, Russ Parrott (NRCan); Gerard Costello (CHS); Ellen Kenchington, Claudio DiBacco (BIO) Project team: Michelle Greenlaw, Jessica Sameoto, Pierre Clement, Robert Benjamin, Jaime Vickers

2. Why Benthic Habitat? • Need to understand role of benthic habitat features in maintaining population productivity and biodiversity • Vulnerability to various types of perturbation are of particular concern • Need to identify and evaluate performance of decision rules designed to protect benthic ecosystem components • Elements of disturbance, sensitivity and connectivity can be encapsulated by this approach. • Many current research initiatives in this field (within and outside of DFO) - opportunities to collaborate

3. Synergies Being Explored • Canadian Healthy Oceans Network • Discovery Corridor cruises in 2009 and 2010 • Census of Marine Life • CoML’s Gulf of Maine Area Program • CoML Synthesis Project (Lawton and R. Pitcher, CSIRO) on use of physical surrogates to predict benthic diversity); • Seabed Mapping in the Gulf of Maine/Bay of Fundy • Natural Resources Canada-led; • Scallop fishing area (SFA) 29 multi-beam project follow-up • NRCan, DFO Science and CHS, all at BIO; • Coastal ecosystem research and decision support work • Coastal Ocean Research Section (SABS); • Initial national program objectives for the Centre for Expertise on Aquatic Habitat Research (CEAHR).

4. Initial Activities (FY 2007–08) • Planning workshop at BIO to review candidate models (Kostylev, Hiddink, etc.) and determine data requirements. • Commenced compilation of available benthic data (physical and biological) into a GIS framework so that spatial boundaries which maximize the amount of known data for modelling can be selected. • Investments made in regional benthic video survey tools (TowCam, Urchin and fibre optic cable equipment).

5. Subsequent Project Years (FY 2008–09 to 2010–11) • Data compilation and modelling/analysis • interview-based survey of ERI project participants’ data requirements  data consolidation to support ecosystem-level projects • Geo-referenced database of all relevant data for the Gulf of Maine benthic project • Maps of the overlaying of data layers to determine the target areas for testing the model • Regional benthic survey capacities • Regional consolidation of benthic survey systems  maintenance and development requirements; • Operational capacity to deploy several different survey systems depending on spatial context and benthic sampling requirements (depth range, spatial coverage, video and/or in situ sampling, benthic community metrics required).

6. Subsequent Project Years (FY 2008–09 to 2010–11), cont’d • Model development and research design for empirical tests • leverage participation in CoML synthesis project to summarize the extent to which physical surrogates explain biological patterns of benthic/demersal biota (GOM, GOMex, GBR: Workshop held at BIO, Sep 20 – Oct 5, 2008). • convene a larger workshop late in FY 2008–09 to focus on more specific modelling approaches, inviting a number of national and international scientists. • Fund participation in ICES study group on fisheries optical survey approaches and WG on marine habitat mapping

7. Subsequent Project Years (FY 2008–09 to 2010–11), cont’d • Empirical testing of predictive models, data analysis & further development of benthic reference points • Planning on field work for 2009/2010 (number of options) to groundtruth the models being developed. • Project synthesis and extension/application development • generate additional hypotheses and proposals to use this evolved benthic system modelling capacity. • Emerging outputs and linkages with the other two ERI themes will be explored, • opportunities to link the analysis of spatial structure of benthic communities to questions of connectance between areas, links to MPA design and performance metrics

8. Example Application: SFA 29 • Geophysical map from Joint project with SCI/ CHS/NRCan. • Layers: bathymetry, current speed, annual survey catches, observer data on bycatch, commercial catch data • Exploitation indicators, i.e., VMS, fishing log data.

9. Scallop survey in SFA 29

10. Cumulative VMS (pings, 0<speed<4 kts)

11. Products • Enhanced prediction of spatial patterns of community types; array of spatial management tools including MPAs. [Healthy and Productive Aquatic Ecosystems (HAPAE)] • Enhanced understanding of sensitivity of diverse benthic communities to disturbance; habitat disturbance reference points [HAPAE] • Ecological footprint of fishing; fisheries management planning tool. [Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture (SFA)] • Impact of fishing gear on the Gulf of Maine benthic communities [SFA, HAPAE] • Effectiveness of the Northeast Channel deep-sea coral closure area for protection of this habitat type, and the goals of the “Coral Conservation Plan” [HAPAE]