Éditeur(s) : Elsevier
Résumé : The long-term BIOZAIRE multidisciplinary deep-sea environmental program on the West Equatorial African margin organized in partnership between Ifremer and TOTAL aimed at characterizing the benthic community structure in relation with physical and chemical processes in a region of oil and gas interest. The morphology of the deep Congo submarine channel and the sedimentological structures of the deep-sea fan were established during the geological ZAIANGO project and helped to select study sites ranging from 350 to 4800 m water depth inside or near the channel and away from its influence. Ifremer conducted eight deep-sea cruises on board research vessels between 2000 and 2005. Standardized methods of sampling together with new technologies such as the ROV Victor 6000 and its associated instrumentation were used to investigate this poorly known continental margin. In addition to the study of sedimentary environments more or less influenced by turbidity events, the discovery of one of the largest cold seeps near the Congo channel and deep coral reefs extends our knowledge of the different habitats of this margin. This paper presents the background, objectives and major results of the BIOZAIRE Program. It highlights the work achieved in the 16 papers in this special issue. This synthesis paper describes the knowledge acquired at a regional and local scale of the Equatorial East Atlantic margin, and tackles new interdisciplinary questions to be answered in the various domains of physics, chemistry, taxonomy and ecology to better understand the deep-sea environment in the Gulf of Guinea.
Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography (0967-0645) (Elsevier), 2009-11 , Vol. 56 , N. 23 , P. 2156-2168

Droits : 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2009/publication-7349.pdf
DOI:10.1016/j.dsr2.2009.04.015
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/7349/

Éditeur(s) : John Wiley & Sons
Résumé : 1. Transitional waters, described as critical transition zones because of their position at terrestrial, freshwater and marine interfaces, provide essential goods and services to the biosphere including human populations. These ecotones face increasing human influence mainly due to population density increase in coastal areas. 2. Transitional water bodies have, to date, received little attention in the development of ecological status indicators, this is a critical deficiency when trying to meet the Water Framework Directive objective of all significant water bodies achieving good ecological status by the year 2015. 3. In order to assess changes in transitional water communities many taxonomic-based indicators have already been proposed but there are a number of concerns for their use such as taxonomic classification difficulties, their unsuitability for multi-site comparisons and their inconsistent relationships with disturbance or stress. 4. Alternative methods based on body size, abundance distribution among functional groups, functional diversity and productivity descriptors are proposed. These methods offer the opportunity to compare sites with different taxonomic compositions and allow derivation of indicators related to ecological status of communities under scrutiny. 5. Finally, the suitability of these taxonomic-free descriptors to provide relevant information for each of the four main biotic compartments in coastal lagoons is discussed. The use of biomass distribution among functional groups for fish, benthos and macrophyte and to use body-size distribution for benthos and plankton is proposed. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (1052-7613) (John Wiley & Sons), 2006-07 , Vol. 16 , N. 5 , P. 469-482

Droits : 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2006/publication-1849.pdf
DOI:10.1002/aqc.769
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/1849/