Reconciling classifications of ecologically and biologically significant areas in the world’s oceans

The classification of marine habitats is a critical first step towards the protection of marine biodiversity and the sustainable management of the world’s oceans. Recently, the topic has received heightened attention as the 2012 deadline for meeting international commitments under the convention on biological diversity (CBD) approaches. These commitments require the development of a unified approach to identifying high-seas areas in need of protection. To determine the best approach, criteria for identifying sensitive areas proposed by the CBD and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations were compared to the ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSAs) criteria developed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The comparison demonstrates that, with some minor refinements, the EBSA criteria are parsimonious and encompass all other criteria proposed to date. To identify the most suitable approach for defining EBSAs, 16 classifications of the world’s oceans, ranging from coastal regions to the high-seas, were reviewed for their suitability to define EBSAs. The classifications differed in substantive ways, including analytical methods (from quantitative analyses to subjective interpretations), data sources (either physical or biological), and the realm to which they were applied (high-seas, coastal, or deep-ocean). No method currently provides an integrated, whole-ecosystem approach to identifying a comprehensive set of important marine areas. To move to a singular, multi-attribute, description of EBSAs requires an explicit, reproducible methodology. Here, the EBSA approach is formalised as an adaptive method that integrates existing classifications in an efficient, holistic, and transparent manner, by explicitly considering important marine features (IMFs) and biologically sensitive areas (BSAs). The proposed approach directly addresses the EBSA criteria, and is applicable across the different realms of the world’s oceans.

[1]  H. B. Whittington.  Treatise on Marine Ecology and Paleoecology, Paleoecology, Vol. 2. Geological Society of America, Washington (1957) , 1958 .

[2]  J. Wiens.  Spatial Scaling in Ecology , 1989 .

[3]  Mark E. Taylor,et al.  Geophysical approaches to the classification, delineation and monitoring of marine habitats and their communities , 2003 .

[4]  F. Favorite,et al.  Review of oceanography of the Subarctic Pacific Region , 1962 .

[5]  I. D. Cresswell,et al.  Global Open Oceans and Deep Seabed (GOODS) : biogeographic classification , 2009 .

[6]  Mark E. Taylor,et al.  National frameworks for marine conservation — a hierarchical geophysical approach , 2000 .

[7]  T. R. E. Southwood,et al.  HABITAT, THE TEMPLET FOR ECOLOGICAL STRATEGIES? , 1977 .

[8]  M. Zacharias,et al.  A Hierarchical Ecological Approach to Conserving Marine Biodiversity , 2000 .

[9]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Ecological Resilience, Biodiversity, and Scale , 1998, Ecosystems.

[10]  E. Sanderson,et al.  A conceptual model for conservation planning based on landscape species requirements , 2002 .

[11]  Elliott A. Norse,et al.  Disturbance of the Seabed by Mobile Fishing Gear: A Comparison to Forest Clearcutting , 1998 .

[12]  M. Austin.  Spatial prediction of species distribution: an interface between ecological theory and statistical modelling , 2002 .

[13]  D. Pauly,et al.  Mapping world-wide distributions of marine mammal species using a relative environmental suitability (RES) model , 2006 .

[14]  Michela Marignani,et al.  Important Plant Areas in Italy: From data to mapping , 2011 .

[15]  J. Harper,et al.  Classes of Nearshore Coasts , 2011 .

[16]  J. Reynolds,et al.  Marine Habitat Mapping Technology for Alaska , 2008 .

[17]  A. Longhurst.  Ecological Geography of the Sea , 1998 .

[18]  W. C. Allee.  Concerning the Organization of Marine Coastal Communities , 1934 .

[19]  D. Simberloff.  Flagships, umbrellas, and keystones: Is single-species management passé in the landscape era? , 1998 .

[20]  E. Sanderson.  How Many Animals Do We Want to Save? The Many Ways of Setting Population Target Levels for Conservation , 2006 .

[21]  F. Favorite.  Oceanography of the subarctic Pacific region, 1960-71 , 1976 .

[22]  Habitat Classification Feasibility Study for Coastal and Marine Environments in Massachusetts , 2007 .

[23]  J. C. Briggs.  Operation of Zoogeographic Barriers , 1974 .

[24]  T. Platt,et al.  Delineation of ecological provinces using ocean colour radiometry , 2007 .

[25]  J. Reynolds,et al.  Marine Benthic Habitat Classification: What’s Best for Alaska? , 2008 .

[26]  K. Sherman,et al.  Variability And Management Of Large Marine Ecosystems , 1986 .

[27]  Desiré Paelinckx,et al.  A concept for biological valuation in the marine environment , 2007 .

[28]  Jennifer L. Molnar,et al.  Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas , 2007 .

[29]  Jim Aiken,et al.  An objective methodology for the classification of ecological pattern into biomes and provinces for the pelagic ocean , 2008 .

[30]  P. Harris,et al.  Geological and biological mapping and characterisation of benthic marine environments—Introduction to the special issue , 2011 .

[31]  Edward J. Gregr,et al.  Adaptive classification of marine ecosystems: Identifying biologically meaningful regions in the marine environment , 2007 .