ATLAS Deliverable 3.3 "Biodiversity, biogeography and GOODS classification system under current climate conditions and future IPCC scenarios"

Major knowledge gaps and a lack of refined models and cost-effective tools to monitor and predict biodiversity delay agreement and implementation of biodiversity management policies at the highest levels. These delays will be reduced through cross-sectoral, multi-stakeholder trans-Atlantic datasharing and integration of ocean mixing and food supply into biodiversity maps. The main vision of WP3 Biodiversity and Biogeography is to conduct pilot studies to validate robust and cost-effective techniques to minimise uncertainty in deep ocean biodiversity and biogeography assessment. At international levels, the Global Open Oceans and Deep Seabed (GOODS) classification scheme is a decision-support tool to help safeguard marine biodiversity, support the ecosystem approach, marine spatial management and the design of MPA networks in national waters and in the international High Seas, thereby helping nations implement global policies enshrined by UNCLOS (e.g. ABNJs), the FAO (e.g. VMEs) and the CBD (e.g. EBSAs). GOODS integrates layers of physical and biological information to delineate biogeographic provinces as entities of flora, fauna and environmental settings. It was later adapted for ABNJ waters >800 m deep, delineating a “Northern Atlantic boreal” and a “North Atlantic” province based on distinct patterns of particulate organic carbon flux and water temperatures. However, the adapted scheme now needs further refinement in light of policy drivers such as the VMEs and EBSAs as it lacks input from structurally complex seabed environments such as CWC reefs, sponge grounds and hydrothermal vents that may also meet EBSA and VME criteria. It could also be substantially improved with input from the latest ocean models integrating horizontal and vertical mixing as water mass characteristics are critical for GOODS boundaries and for species distribution models (SDMs) to predict occurrences of cold-water corals, sponges and fish. Yet even SDMs that integrate larval tracking are still overly simplistic and inaccurate, and at best they use coarse estimates of surface primary production to proxy seafloor food supply. In this deliverable, ATLAS used a combination of techniques, along with the best available information along with knowledge developments made by WP1 and WP2 and new data gathered by WP3 to improve the understanding of deep-sea the biodiversity and biogeographic patterns of sensitive deepwater ecosystems and deep-sea fish in the North Atlantic and forecast changes under IPCC 21st century scenarios of water mass structure and ocean currents