General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct FixO3 Service Activity information PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY Ecology & ecosystem function SA starting date: Started Scientific contact person: Henry Ruhl & Brian Bett Data manager: M Pagnani NOC-led, NHM, U Glasgow, et al. contribute

General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY Observations, archiving and provision of data Variables the service activity is based on (referencing 2011 onward) Megafauna trawl analysis (2011 analysed, samples collected in 2013) Megafauna image analysis ( analysed, 2014 samples collected) Macrofauna analysis ( analysed, 2014 samples collected) Foraminifera meiofauna analysis (2011 analysed, samples collected) Prokaryotic bacteria analysis ( samples collected) Biodiversity indicator analysis (ongoing) Data archive BODC Main site page: Data access [current data policy] - transitioning to ‘FixO3 data principles’ [authentication] - ? [monitoring of data usage] – needs improvement

General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY SA nature and readiness Nature of the products provided and added value Yearly time series Open access in a timely manner, derived products/indicators Issues to solve until SA provision Relates to ongoing sampling. Sample processing ongoing…new hire for Prokaryotic work starts this Dec. Problems and solutions, support needed Would like to eventually create comparable muliti-observatory indicators that could persist after FixO3 Would expect that after the first collection of SA data, that we could look for ways to harmonize approaches to the above goal.

General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY Ruhl et al, Ecology 2014 Megafauna Example – Evidence for compensatory behaviour in community structuring The hypothesis of ‘compensatory dynamics’ posits that when resource levels are fixed, total abundance is constant, and increases in abundance of one taxon are compensated for by reductions in another. Specifically, given a fixed resource input and constant temperature, the total number of individuals (N) in a community is inversely related to the mean individual metabolic rate (B), where N α B -1 ( Right Fig.) Deviations from this (as noise around line in right figure) likely relate to shifting resource availability. J’ = evenness

General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY Foraminifera variation over time Gooday et al., 2010 DSR II

General Assembly Meeting – SA Session | Crete Oct PAP – NORTH ATLANTIC BENTHIC BIODIVERSITY Macrofauna (polychaete) variation over time Laguionie- Marchais et al., 2013 DSRI Feeding guild rank abundance distributions at two different overall densities