A hierarchical classification of benthic biodiversity and assessment of protected areas in the Southern Ocean.

ABSTRACT: An international effort is underway to establish a representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean to help provide for the long-term conservation of marine biodiversity in the region. Important to this undertaking is knowledge of the distribution of benthic assemblages. Here, our aim is to identify the areas where benthic marine assemblages are likely to differ from each other in the Southern Ocean including near-shore Antarctica. We achieve this by using a hierarchical spatial classification of ecoregions, bathomes and environmental types. Ecoregions are defined according to available data on biogeographic patterns and environmental drivers on dispersal. Bathomes are identified according to depth strata defined by species distributions. Environmental types are

SUBMITTER: Douglass LL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4102490 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature