Abstract
Assessing and mapping ecosystem services (ES) has emerged as an important practice to support natural resource management and set conservation priorities. This is recognised as useful in enabling simultaneous attainment of socio-economic and ecological goals. Yet there exists a bias towards assessing ES in terrestrial and coastal systems. Deep-sea applications are particularly scant. Assessing ES provided by the deep sea is undermined by the lack of ecological data and scientific understanding of the links between ecosystem components and human well-being. Thus, novel tools are required to translate existing deep-sea ES knowledge into Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), while maintaining acceptable levels of accuracy and explicitly communicating limitations.The studies carried out in this thesis aim to contribute to our understanding of the ES provided by the deep sea and trial new interdisciplinary methodologies for the development of tools to facilitate sustainable management of the deep sea. The first segment of this thesis characterises the ES provided by deep-sea benthic ecosystems. By means of systematic and extensive literature reviews, results show that the deep sea provides a range of ecosystem services to humans, including climate change mitigation, food, genetic resources for medical purposes, minerals for technological use and human cultural development. Further developing our socio-ecological understanding of deep-sea ES, substantial knowledge gaps were identified in the ecological processes carried out by benthic biological communities that underpin all other services.
In the second segment of this thesis, the focus shifts towards translating the information collected into spatial units conducive to integration into MSP. Habitat suitability modelling (HSM) was applied to predict the distribution and extent of several deep-sea habitats in poorly sampled areas. Model performance varied across environmental basins with better performance shown in northeast Atlantic models than in the South Atlantic. By combining the socio-ecological information on the services provided by deep-sea habitats and maps generated by HSM, the final output produces maps of the distribution of deep-sea ecosystem services at fine-scale resolution in the UK Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic. This thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of the ES provided by benthic deep-sea ecosystems and demonstrates how such information, despite large knowledge gaps, can be used as baseline data to make informed decisions in MSP.
| Date of Award | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Kerry Howell (Director of Studies (First Supervisor)), Sian Rees (Other Supervisor) & Martin Attrill (Other Supervisor) |