Arvanitidis, C. and Somerfield, P.J. and Rumohr, H. and Faulwetter, S. and Valavanis, V. and Vasileiadou, A. and Chatzigeorgiou, G. and Berghe Vanden, E. and Vanaverbeke, J. and Labrune, C. and Grémare, A. and Zettler, M.L. and Kedra, M. and Wlodarska-Kowalczuk, M. and Aleffi, I.F. and Amouroux, J.M. and Anisimova, N. and Bachelet, G. and Büntzow, M. and Cochrane, S.J. and Costello, M.J. and Craeymeersch, J.A. and Dahle, S. and Degraer, S. and Denisenko, S. and Dounas, C. and Duineveld, G. and Emblow, C. and Escavarage, V. and Fabri, M.C. and Fleischer, D. and Gray, J.S. and Heip, C.H.R. and Herrmann, M. and Hummel, H. and Janas, U. and Karakassis, I. and Kendall, M.A. and Kingston, P. and Kotwicki, L. and Laudien, J. and Mackie, A.S.Y. and Nevrova, E.L. and Occhipinti-Ambrogi, A. and Oliver, P.G. and Olsgard, F. and Palerud, R. and Petrov, A. and Rachor, E. and Revkov, N.K. and Rose, A. and Sardá, R. and Sistermans, W.C.H. and Speybroeck, J. and Van Hoey, G. and Vincx, M. and Whomersley, P. and Willems, W. and Zenetos, A. (2009) Biological geography of the European seas: results from the MacroBen database. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 382, 265-278. ISSN 0171-8630.
|PDF - Published Version|
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/meps07955
This study examines whether or not biogeographical and/or managerial divisions across the European seas can be validated using soft-bottom macrobenthic community data. The faunal groups used were: all macrobenthos groups, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, sipunculans and the last 5 groups combined. In order to test the discriminating power of these groups, 3 criteria were used: (1) proximity, which refers to the expected closer faunal resemblance of adjacent areas relative to more distant ones; (2) randomness, which in the present context is a measure of the degree to which the inventories of the various sectors, provinces or regions may in each case be considered as a random sample of the inventory of the next largest province or region in a hierarchy of geographic scales; and (3) differentiation, which provides a measure of the uniqueness of the pattern. Results show that only polychaetes fulfill all 3 criteria and that the only marine biogeographic system supported by the analyses is the one proposed by Longhurst (1998). Energy fluxes and other interactions between the planktonic and benthic domains, acting over evolutionary time scales, can be associated with the multivariate pattern derived from the macrobenthos datasets. Third-stage multidimensional scaling ordination reveals that polychaetes produce a unique pattern when all systems are under consideration. Average island distance from the nearest coast, number of islands and the island surface area were the geographic variables best correlated with the community patterns produced by polychaetes. Biogeographic patterns suggest a vicariance model dominating over the founder-dispersal model except for the semi-closed regional seas, where a model substantially modified from the second option could be supported.
|Institutes:||Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie (NIOO)|
|Deposited On:||23 Mar 2010 01:00|
|Last Modified:||31 Mar 2014 10:40|
Repository Staff Only: item control page