Fine-Scale Heterogeneity of a Cold-Water Coral Reef and Its Influence on the Distribution of Associated Taxa

20 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.556313/full#supplementary-material.-- Data Availability Statement: The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation. Some datasets presented in this article are not readily available because parts of the study are ongoing, and cannot be made public until they have been fully analysed. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to DP, d.m.price@soton.ac.uk and AW, a.wheeler@ucc.ie
Benthic fauna form spatial patterns which are the result of both biotic and abiotic processes, which can be quantified with a range of landscape ecology descriptors. Fine- to medium-scale spatial patterns (200 m2 were created and all organisms were geotagged in order to illustrate their point pattern. The pair correlation function was used to establish whether organisms demonstrated a clustered pattern (CP) at various scales. We further applied a point pattern modelling approach to identify four potential point patterns: complete spatial randomness (CSR), an inhomogeneous pattern influenced by environmental drivers, random clustered point pattern indicating biologically driven clustering and an inhomogeneous clustered point pattern driven by a combination of environmental drivers and biological effects. Reef framework presence and structural complexity determined inhabitant distribution with most organisms showing a departure from CSR. These CPs are likely caused by an affinity to local environmental drivers, growth patterns and restricted dispersion reproductive strategies within the habitat across a range of fine to medium scales. These data provide novel and detailed insights into fine-scale habitat heterogeneity, showing that non-random distributions are apparent and detectable at these fine scales in deep-sea habitats
These data were collected during the Querci expedition, funded by the Marine Institute under the Ship Time Programme of the National Development Plan. DP was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (grant number NE/N012070/1) and University of Southampton GSNOCS European Exchange Programme. VH was funded by the NERC CLASS project (grant number NE/R015953/1). AL and VH were supported by the iAtlantic project of the EU H2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant number 818123). CLI was supported by the H2020 MSC Action HABISS (GA 890815)
With the funding support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI)