Description du projet
Résilience des communautés de coraux d’eau froide aux changements environnementaux
Les récifs coralliens d’eau froide (CWC pour «cold-water coral») sont menacés par les activités de pêche. Considérés comme des écosystèmes marins vulnérables, plusieurs monticules et canyons abritant des récifs CWC dans les eaux atlantiques de l’UE ont été classés comme aires marines protégées. Mais ces efforts ne suffisent pas. Il importe d’intégrer des plans et des politiques de gestion qui tiennent compte des flux de carbone organique particulaire qui façonnent les communautés benthiques des eaux profondes. Le projet CWCC-Dynamics, financé par l’UE, s’intéressera à la dynamique des communautés CWC dans les monticules et les marges nord-atlantiques et examinera la façon dont différents facteurs environnementaux sont susceptibles de les influencer. Les résultats mettront en lumière la résilience des communautés CWC aux changements environnementaux.
Objectif
Mounds and margins on the North Atlantic host highly diverse and structurally complex megabenthic communities, such as cold-water coral (CWC) reefs. These communities have been widely impacted by fishing activities, and thus CWC reefs are identified as vulnerable marine ecosystems in need of protection. Recently, several deep-sea environments (e.g. mounts, canyons) hosting CWC reefs, in EU Atlantic waters have been integrated in Marine Protected Areas (MPA). However, few of these MPAs have incorporated management plans. To establish suitable management policies, it is required to implement monitoring strategies that account for these diverse community dynamics and how they may be influenced by environmental drivers. Particulate organic carbon (POC) fluxes are known to shape deep-sea benthic communities, indicating that variations in food supply is a major driver affecting community structure and dynamics. Yet, the relationship between POC fluxes and benthic community dynamics at different temporal and spatial scales are not fully understood. Elucidating deep-sea benthic community dynamics, represents an important challenge for future research especially as management of human impacts becomes a priority. This project’s main goals are to assess the dynamics of CWC communities in mound and margins on the North Atlantic, and examine how different environmental factors may be influencing them. Community dynamics will be assessed via convolutional neural networks which will allow to assess changes in community composition and structural complexity on 3 areas that have been monitored with benthic platforms equipped with HD cameras and several environmental sensors during several months (12 – 24 months). This project will be of wide scientific interest as it will provide insight into the resilience of CWC communities to environmental change and the basis to establish a set of essential variables to be monitored over the long term and support sound conservation actions.
Champ scientifique
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesfisheries
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsoptical sensors
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencecomputational intelligence
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
3526 KV Utrecht
Pays-Bas