Work

Habitat suitability and future refugia for vulnerable marine ecosystems sea pens across European seas

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Sea pen fields play a key role in providing three-dimensional habitats on muddy and sandy seabeds, altering local currents, increasing food availability for juvenile fish, and offering shelter in otherwise low-complexity environments. These important habitats face increasing pressures from bottom trawl fisheries and climate change, the latter of which remains poorly understood in terms of species response. As a result, sea pen fields are classified as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) and therefore protected by international legislation including United Nations resolutions and the Deep-sea Access Regulation of the European Commission, highlighting the need for targeted management plans. To assess the current distribution and potential impact of climate change on three VME sea pen indicator species (Pennatula phosphorea, Pennatula rubra, and Pteroeides griseum) at pan-European scale, we applied an ensemble of species distribution models to predict their habitat suitability. Presence–absence data collected from trawl surveys, databases, and literature were used for model development. Probability of presence was estimated as a function of several environmental predictors, including temperature, current velocity, oxygen concentration, bathymetry, and substrate type. Our results show that the response at the species level is similar for substrate type and current preference, but differs in the range of maximum summer temperature, which has a structuring effect on the distribution of these three species. Predicted habitat shifts for the 2091–2100 timeframe are driven by rising summer temperatures as well as changing dissolved oxygen content. This study provides the first large-scale assessment of the current distribution of these three sea pens in European waters and identifies climate refugia from the Mediterranean Sea to the northeast Atlantic with high confidence levels, delivering new information of relevance for the conservation of VMEs.

Source: ICES Journal of Marine Science

DOI: 10.1093/icesjms/fsag123