• Energy Research
• GB close
• CH close
• European Marine Science close

Species distribution models (SDMs) are becoming an important tool for marine conservation and management. Yet while there is an increasing diversity and volume of marine biodiversity data for training SDMs, little practical guidance is available on how to leverage distinct data types to build robust models. We explored the effect of different data types on the fit, performance and predictive ability of SDMs by comparing models trained with four data types for a heavily exploited pelagic fish, the blue shark (Prionace glauca), in the Northwest Atlantic: two fishery-dependent (conventional mark-recapture tags, fisheries observer records) and two fishery-independent (satellite-linked electronic tags, pop-up archival tags). We found that all four data types can result in robust models, but differences among spatial predictions highlighted the need to consider ecological realism in model selection and interpretation regardless of data type. Differences among models were primarily attributed to biases in how each data type, and the associated representation of absences, sampled the environment and summarized the resulting species distributions. Outputs from model ensembles and a model trained on all pooled data both proved effective for combining inferences across data types and provided more ecologically realistic predictions than individual models. Our results provide valuable guidance for practitioners developing SDMs. With increasing access to diverse data sources, future work should further develop truly integrative modeling approaches that can explicitly leverage strengths of individual data types while statistically accounting for limitations, such as sampling biases.  Please see the README document ("README.md") and the accompanying published article: Braun, C. D., M. C. Arostegui, N. Farchadi, M. Alexander, P. Afonso, A. Allyn, S. J. Bograd, S. Brodie, D. P. Crear, E. F. Culhane, T. H. Curtis, E. L. Hazen, A. Kerney, N. Lezama-Ochoa, K. E. Mills, D. Pugh, N. Queiroz, J. D. Scott, G. B. Skomal, D. W. Sims, S. R. Thorrold, H. Welch, R. Young-Morse, R. Lewison. In press. Building use-inspired species distribution models: using multiple data types to examine and improve model performance. Ecological Applications. Accepted. DOI: < article DOI will be added when it is assigned >

1. Tidal stream energy converters (turbines) are currently being installed in tidally energetic coastal sites. However, there is currently a high level of uncertainty surrounding the potential environmental impacts on marine mammals. This is a key consenting risk to commercial introduction of tidal energy technology. Concerns derive primarily from the potential for injury to marine mammals through collisions with moving components of turbines. To understand the nature of this risk, information on how animals respond to tidal turbines is urgently required. 2. We measured the behaviour of harbour seals in response to acoustic playbacks of simulated tidal turbine sound within a narrow coastal channel subject to strong, tidally induced currents. This was carried out using data from animal-borne GPS tags and shore-based observations, which were analysed to quantify behavioural responses to the turbine sound. 3. Results showed that the playback state (silent control or turbine signal) was not a significant predictor of the overall number of seals sighted within the channel. 4. However, there was a localised impact of the turbine signal; tagged harbour seals exhibited significant spatial avoidance of the sound which resulted in a reduction in the usage by seals of between 11 and 41% at the playback location. The significant decline in usage extended to 500 m from the playback location at which usage decreased by between 1 and 9% during playback. 5. Synthesis and applications: This study provides important information for policy makers looking to assess the potential impacts of tidal turbines and advise on development of the tidal energy industry. Results showing that seals avoid tidal turbine sound suggest that a proportion of seals encountering tidal turbines will exhibit behavioural responses resulting in avoidance of physical injury; in practice, the empirical changes in usage can be used directly as avoidance rates when using collision risk models to predict the effects of tidal turbines on seals. There is now a clear need to measure how marine mammals behave in response to actual operating tidal turbines in the long term to learn whether marine mammals and tidal turbines can co-exist safely at the scales currently envisaged for the industry. JApEcol_Hastie_etal_observation_data_DryadLand based observer data (.xlsx) used in the analysis of seal responses to tidal turbine sounds. This is effectively counts of seals observed in the water during acoustic playbacks of tidal turbine sound and silent controls. Data were collected by a series of observers located on a clifftop overlooking the study area (Kyle Rhea, Isle of Skye, Scotland) README file is provided as a tab in the file.JApEcol_Hastie_etal_seal_telemetry_data_DryadHarbour seal telemetry data (.xlsx) used in the analysis of changes in usage with distance from the location of playbacks of tidal turbine sound. The data are regularised lat-lon locations from 10 individual harbour seals tagged with GPS telemetry devices. README is provided as a tab in the file.STIMweighted_J11_1hour_withRampSound file (.wav) used during playbacks of simulated tidal turbine sound to harbour seals to investigate avoidance responses. The file has a 10 second ramp at the start and end of the file, and is frequency weighted for use with a J11 underwater speaker.

Aim: Animal migration strategies balance trade-offs between mortality and reproduction in seasonal environments. Knowledge of broad-scale biogeographical patterns of animal migration is important for understanding ecological drivers of migratory behaviours. Here we present a flyway-scale assessment of the spatial structure and seasonal dynamics of the Afro-Palearctic bird migration system and explore how phenology of the environment guides long-distance migration. Location: Europe and Africa. Time period: 2009–2017. Major taxa studied: Birds. Methods: We compiled an individual-based dataset comprising 23 passerine and near-passerine species of 55 European breeding populations where a total of 564 individuals were tracked migrating between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, we used remote sensed observations on primary productivity (NDVI) to estimate the timing of vegetation green-up in spring and senescence in autumn across Europe. First, we described how individual breeding and non-breeding sites and the migratory flyways link geographically. Second, we examined how migration timing along the two major Afro-Palearctic flyways is tuned with vegetation phenology en route and at the breeding sites. Results: While we found the longitudes of individual breeding and non-breeding sites to be strongly positively related, the latitudes of breeding and non-breeding sites were negatively related. In autumn, timing of migration was similar along the Western and the Eastern flyways and happened ahead of the autumnal senescence of vegetation. In spring, migration timing was approximately two weeks later along the Eastern flyway than on the Western flyway which coincided with the later spring green-up in Eastern Europe. Main Conclusions: Migration of the Afro-Palearctic landbirds follows a longitudinally parallel leap-frog migration pattern where migrants track vegetation green-up in spring and depart before vegetation senescence in autumn. However, the ongoing global change have the potential to disrupt this spatiotemporal synchronization between migration timing and spring green-up with variable effects on different migrant populations.

Dataset abstract This dataset contains quality-checked meteorological observations of air temperature, relative humidity, dew point, barometric pressure and observations of downwelling solar radiation and ultraviolet radiation. Further it contains the wind speed and direction relative to the ship but not corrected for air-flow distortion, and translated into the earth reference frame. For each of these variables observations are available from a portside and starboard side sensor. The dataset also contains, cloud base height and sky cover at three levels measured with a Ceilometer. As additional information the solar azimuth and altitude angle have been calculated for the ship’s position every five minutes and have been added as a one-minute time series using the nearest value. The ship’s position, heading, course and speed over ground are also provided. The wind speed measurements were made at a height of approximately 30.5 meters above sea level. The measurement height of the temperature and humidity probes is 23.7 meters above sea level. The barometric pressure was measured at 20 meters above sea level. The observations have been screened for implausible values and on some occasions despiking based on visual inspection and a rolling interquartile range filter have been applied. Solar radiation measurements are affected by shadowing of the ship, and the air temperature and humidity by the heating of air that passes over the ship. Masks are provided to flag affected observations. The wind speed readings are affected by airflow distortion and should be used with consideration until a dataset of corrected wind speeds is published. More details on airflow distortion can be requested from the contact person. Dataset contents ACE_filtered_meteorological_data_1min.csv, data file, comma-separated values diff_TA1_TA3_WDR2_5min_1.png, metadata, portable network graphics ratio_SR1_SR3_solangle_5min_1.png, metadata, portable network graphics data_file_header.txt, metadata, text README.txt, metadata, text ace_filtered_meteorological_data_change_log.txt, metadata, text Change log v1.1 - The range check for skycover (SC) and cloudlevel (CL) was added to the quality-checking routines. 53 data points violated the range check for these variables: these have now been marked as NaN. v1.0 - Initial release of verified meteorological data. Dataset license This meteorological dataset is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) whose full description can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ {"references": ["Smith, Shawn R., Mark A. Bourassa, and Ryan J. Sharp. Establishing More Truth in True Winds. JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY 16 (1999): 14.", "Stull, Roland. Wet-Bulb Temperature from Relative Humidity and Air Temperature. 2011. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 50, no. 11 (9 September 2011): 2267\u201369. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-11-0143.1."]} The Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition was made possible by funding from the Swiss Polar Institute and Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition – Delivering Added value To Antarctica (ACE-DATA) is funded by the Swiss Data Science Center as Project number 17-02.

# Long-term changes in taxonomic and functional composition of European marine fish communities The GitHub linked repository is here: [European_demersal_fish_assemblages (](https://github.com/auroreRECE/European_demersal_fish_assemblages)DOI [10.5281/zenodo.11190119](https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.11190119)) ## Overview This project is dedicated to studying the influence of environmental conditions and fishing on the functional and taxonomic structure of a demersal fish community in Europe. This GitHub repository provides the code of the Receveur et al. (2024) publication in Ecography. ## Data files description ### df\_MFA.csv This file contains the coordinates resulting from the Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA): * X : the row numbers ; * ID_unique : a unique ID number corresponding to the trawls ; * Dim.1 : the coordinate of each trawl on the first MFA dimension ; * Dim.2 : the coordinate of each trawl on the second MFA dimension ; * Dim.3 : the coordinate of each trawl on the third MFA dimension ; ### df\_PCA.csv This file contains the coordinates * X : the row numbers ; * ID_unique : a unique ID number corresponding to the trawls ; * Dim.1 : the coordinate of each trawl on the first PCA dimension ; * Dim.2 : the coordinate of each trawl on the second PCA dimension ; * Dim.3 : the coordinate of each trawl on the third PCA dimension ; ### df\_env.csv This file contains the following environmental parameters: * X : the row numbers ; * ID_unique : a unique ID number corresponding to the trawls ; * Year : the Year of each trawl ; * Quarter : the Quarter of each trawl ; * Ecoregion : the Ecoregion where each trawl has been done; * Survey : the name of the Survey ; * x_my_spatial_id : the longitude of the ICES rectangle where the trawl has been done ; * y_my_spatial_id : the latitude of the ICES rectangle where the trawl has been done ; * my_spatial_id : an ID for the ICES rectangle where the trawl has been done ; * depth : the bottom depth (meters) ; * depth_span : the bottom depth variability (maximum depth of the ICES cell - minimum depth) (meters) ; * chloro_mea: the mean chlorophyll-a concentration (mg/m³) ; * mlotst_mea : the mean mixed layer depth (meters) ; * oxy_bottom_mea : the mean bottom dissolved oxygen (umol/l) ; * oxy_surf_mea : the mean surface dissolved oxygen (umol/l) ; * temp_bottom_mea : the mean bottom temperature (°C) ; * temp_surf_mea : the mean surface temperature (°C) ; * curr_surf_mea : the mean surface current strength (m/s) ; * curr_bottom_mea : the mean bottom current strength (m/s) ; * sal_surf_mea : the mean surface salinity (PSU) ; * chloro_std : the standard deviation of chlorophyll-a concentration (mg/m³) ; * mlotst_std : the standard deviation of mixed layer depth (meters) ; * oxy_bottom_std : the standard deviation of bottom dissolved oxygen (umol/l) ; * oxy_surf_std : the standard deviation of surface dissolved oxygen (umol/l) ; * temp_bottom_std : the standard deviation of bottom temperature (°C) ; * temp_surf_std : the standard deviation of surface temperature (°C) ; * curr_surf_std : the standard deviation of surface current strength (m/s) ; * curr_bottom_std : the standard deviation of bottom current strength (m/s) ; * sal_surf_std : the standard deviation of surface salinity (PSU). ## Raw Data sources ### Biological data Trawls content is publicly available for the North East Atlantic (DATRAS database). Mediterranean data (MEDITS database) are available upon request to Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (MARE DATACOLLECTIONFRAMEWORK). The project uses the following surveys: | Survey Code | Survey name | Area | Period | References | | :---------- | :----------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------- | :-------: | :--------: | | BITS | Baltic International Trawl Survey | Baltic Sea | 1994-2019 | 4 | | BTS | Beam Trawl Survey | Celtic Sea; English Channel; North Sea | 1997-2019 | 7 | | BTS-VIII | Beam Trawl Survey – Bay of Biscay | Bay of Biscay | 2011-2019 | 7 | | DWS | Deepwater Survey | Irish Sea | 2006-2007 | 8 | | DYFS | Inshore Beam Trawl Survey | Southern North Sea | 2002-2019 | 7 | | EVHOE | French Southern Atlantic Bottom trawl Survey | Bay of Biscay and Celtic Sea | 2003-2019 | 1 | | FR-CGFS | French Channel ground Survey | English Channel | 1997-2019 | 2 | | IE-IAMS | Irish Anglerfish and megrim Survey | Scottish rockall and Irish Sea | 2016-2019 | 2 | | IE-IGFS | Irish Groundfish | Ireland Shelf Sea | 2003-2019 | 2 | | MEDITS | International bottom trawl survey in the Mediterranean | Mediterranean Sea | 1994-2018 | 9 | | NIGFS | Northern Ireland Groundfish Survey | Irish Sea | 2009-2019 | 2 | | NS-IBTS | North Sea International Bottom Trawl Survey | North Sea | 1997-2019 | 2 | | PT-IBTS | Portuguese International Bottom Trawl Survey | Portugal Shelf Sea | 2003-2017 | 2 | | ROCKALL | Scottish Rockall Survey (until 2010) | Rockall plateau | 2003-2009 | 2 | | SCOROC | Scottish Rockall Survey (from 2011) | Scottish plateau | 2011-2019 | 2 | | SCOWCGFS | Scottish West Coast Groundfish Survey | Scottish west coast | 2011-2019 | 2 | | SNS | Sole Net Survey | Southern North Sea | 2002-2019 | 7 | | SP-ARSA | Spanish Gulf of Cadiz Bottom Trawl Survey | Spain | 2003-2019 | 6 | | SP-NORTH | Spanish North Bottom Trawl Survey | North of Spain | 2003-2019 | 2 | | SP-PORC | Spanish Porcupine Bottom Trawl Survey | Irish Sea | 2003-2019 | 5 | | SWC-IBTS | Scottish West Coast International Bottom Trawl Survey | Scotland Shelf Sea | 1999-2010 | 2 | ### Trait data The complete traits data table is available upon request. It is a combination of the publicly available PANGAEA database, Fishbase information, and inference based on the FISHLIFE project. ### Environmental variables The data used are all publicly available on the Copernicus website. ### Fishing data The data used are all publicly available on the Global Fishing Watch website. ## Recommended Citation Please use the following citation: Receveur, A., Leprieur F., Ellingsen K., Keith D., Kleisner K., McLean M., Mérigot B., Mills K., Mouillot D., Rufino M., Trindade-Santos I., Van Hoey G., Albouy C., Auber A. Data for “Long-term changes in taxonomic and functional composition of European marine fish communities.” Dryad Digital Repository. (2024). doi.org/10.5061/dryad.x69p8czsj ## Acknowledgments This research is a product of the MAESTRO group funded by the synthesis center CESAB of the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB). We thank France Filière Pêche (FFP) who founded the MAESTRO project. We also warmly thank all those who have contributed in any way to the scientific surveys and data collection/provision (European Institutions and scientists implicated in DATRAS-BTS, MEDITS, and DCF). ## References 1. ICES. The EVHOE survey (France). ICES Documents. (1997). Available at: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00036/14707/12013.pdf 2. ICES. Manual of the IBTS North Eastern Atlantic Surveys. Series of ICES Survey Protocols SISP 15 (2017). doi:10.17895/ices.pub.3519 3. ICES. Manual for the International Bottom Trawl Surveys Revision VIII. Series of ICES Survey Protocols SISP 10 - IBTS IX. (2015). 4. https://ices-library.figshare.com/articles/report/SISP_7_-*Manual_for_the_Baltic_International_Trawl_Surveys_BITS*/19050986 5. https://gis.ices.dk/geonetwork/srv/api/records/ce94a257-c8b3-44f7-9fd0-6bd7449ce073 6. http://ices.dk/sites/pub/CM%20Doccuments/2002/D/D0302A.pdf 7. https://ices-library.figshare.com/articles/report/SISP_14_-*Manual_for_the_Offshore_Beam_Trawl_Surveys_WGBEAM*/19051328 8. https://gis.ices.dk/geonetwork/srv/api/records/936b4fb7-9baa-4dbc-abd0-b1b7bda16406 9. https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00117/22783/20585.pdf Evidence of large-scale biodiversity degradation in marine ecosystems has been reported worldwide, yet most research has focused on few species of interest or on limited spatiotemporal scales. Here we assessed the spatial and temporal changes in the taxonomic and functional composition of fish communities in European seas over the last 25 years (1994-2019). We then explored how these community changes were linked to environmental gradients and fishing pressure. We show that the spatial variation in fish species composition is more than two times higher than the temporal variation, with a marked spatial continuum in taxonomic composition and a more homogenous pattern in functional composition. The regions warming the fastest are experiencing an increasing dominance and total abundance of r-strategy fish species (lower age of maturity). Conversely, regions warming more slowly show an increasing dominance and total abundance of K-strategy species (high trophic level and late reproduction). Among the considered environmental variables, sea surface temperature, surface salinity, and chlorophyll-a most consistently influenced communities’ spatial patterns, while bottom temperature and oxygen had the most consistent influence on temporal patterns. Changes in communities’ functional composition were more closely related to environmental conditions than taxonomic changes. Our study demonstrates the importance of integrating community-level species traits across multi-decadal scales and across a large region to better capture and understand ecosystem-wide responses and provides a different lens on community dynamics that could be used to support sustainable fisheries management.

Associated data and R code for the paper Epstein & Roberts 2022 - Identifying priority areas to manage mobile bottom fishing on seabed carbon in the UK. This repository contains the primary output data from a desk-based investigation of seabed sediment organic carbon (OC) and mobile demeresal fishing in the UKEEZ. Best available published datasets were combined to produce unified maps of predicted seabed OC stocks, mean annual mobile bottom fishing disturbance, mean value of fish landed by mobile bottom fishing, and mean annual cummulative disturbance to seabed carbon from mobile bottom fishing. This data was combined with modeling of estimated fishing displacement to idenitfy priority areas for managmement and/or future research. For further methodological information please refer to the full paper published at PLOS Climate.

Project: GCOS Earth Heat Inventory - A study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory (EHI), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period from 1960 to present. Summary: The file “GCOS_EHI_1960-2020_Earth_Heat_Inventory_Ocean_Heat_Content_data.nc” contains a consistent long-term Earth system heat inventory over the period 1960-2020. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere which is driving global warming. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system from this accumulated heat – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system - is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This dataset is based on a study under the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory published in von Schuckmann et al. (2020), and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960-2020. The dataset also contains estimates for global ocean heat content over 1960-2020 for different depth layers, i.e., 0-300m, 0-700m, 700-2000m, 0-2000m, 2000-bottom, which are described in von Schuckmann et al. (2022). This version includes an update of heat storage of global ocean heat content, where one additional product (Li et al., 2022) had been included to the initial estimate. The Earth heat inventory had been updated accordingly, considering also the update for continental heat content (Cuesta-Valero et al., 2023).

Quantitative reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) assessments are of fundamental importance at the early design stages, as well as planning and operation of marine renewable energy systems. This paper presents an RAM framework adaptable to different offshore renewable technologies, conceived to provide support in the choice of the device components and subsequent planning of the O&M strategies. A case study, characterizing a pilot farm of oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converters (WECs), is illustrated together with the method used to obtain reliable estimate of its key performance indicators (KPIs). Based on a fixed feed-in-tariff for the project, economic figures are estimated, showing a direct relationship with the availability of the farm and the cost of maintenance interventions. Consequently, the probability distributions of the most relevant output variables are presented, and the mutual correlations between them investigated using principal components analysis (PCA) with the aim of discovering the relationships influencing the performance of the offshore farm. In this way, the contributions of the individual factors on the profitability of the project are quantified, and generic guidelines to support the decision-making process are derived. It is shown how this type of analysis provides important insights not only to ocean energy farm operators after the deployment of the devices, but also to device developers at the early design stage of wave energy concepts.