AIM: To characterize the functional diversity and selected ecological functions of marine epibenthic invertebrate communities at the ecosystem scale and to evaluate the relative contributions of environmental filtering, including bottom‐contact fishing, and competitive interactions to benthic community assembly. LOCATION: Flemish Cap, an ecosystem production unit and fishing bank in the high seas of the north‐west Atlantic Ocean. METHODS: Through the use of Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities (HMSC), we have explored seven community response traits to the environment applied to 105 epibenthic species and evaluated the influence of such traits on the community assembly processes. Assumed bioturbation, nutrient cycling and habitat provision functions, linked to individual or a combination of biological traits, were mapped using random forest modelling. RESULTS: Functional richness within benthic communities reached an asymptote for trawl sets with roughly more than 30 species. Assemblages on top of the Flemish Cap (<500 m depth) were characterized by higher biomass of small‐ and medium‐sized species with short life spans, whereas large species with longer life spans and broadcast spawners were dominant in the deeper assemblages (500–1,500 m depth). The amount of variation explained by the species’ responses to the covariates mediated by the traits was relatively high (25%) indicating their relevance to community assembly. Community‐weighted mean trait values changed with depth and physical oceanographic variables, indicating that environmental filtering was occurring. Interspecific interactions, as inferred from the random effect at the sample level, accounted for 16.3% of the variance in the model, while fishing effort explained only 5.2% of the variance but conferred strong negative impacts for most species. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that while bottom‐contact fishing impacts have an effect on functional diversity, changes to the physical oceanography of the system are likely to have more profound impacts. The maps of benthic functioning can aid assessments of ecosystem impacts of fishing.

中文翻译：

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Flemish Cap（西北大西洋）的海洋底栖功能多样性——识别对环境的性状响应并绘制生态系统功能图

目的：在生态系统尺度上表征海洋底栖无脊椎动物群落的功能多样性和选定的生态功能，并评估环境过滤的相对贡献，包括底部接触捕鱼，以及对底栖群落组装的竞争性相互作用。位置：佛兰芒帽，一个位于大西洋西北部公海的生态系统生产单位和渔业银行。方法：通过使用物种群落分层模型（HMSC），我们探索了 7 个群落响应环境对 105 个底栖物种的响应特征，并评估了这些特征对群落组装过程的影响。假定的生物扰动、养分循环和栖息地提供功能，与个体或生物特征的组合有关，使用随机森林模型绘制。结果：底栖群落内的功能丰富度达到了大约 30 多种拖网组的渐近线。佛兰芒帽顶部（<500 m 深度）的组合的特征是寿命较短的中小型物种的生物量较高，而寿命较长的大型物种和广播产卵者在更深的组合中占主导地位（500 - 1,500 m 深）。物种对由性状介导的协变量的反应所解释的变异量相对较高 (25%)，表明它们与群落组装的相关性。社区加权平均特征值随深度和物理海洋学变量而变化，表明环境过滤正在发生。从样本水平的随机效应推断出的种间相互作用，占模型方差的 16.3%，而捕捞努力量仅解释了 5.2% 的方差，但对大多数物种产生了强烈的负面影响。主要结论：我们的结果表明，虽然底部接触捕鱼影响对功能多样性有影响，但系统物理海洋学的变化可能会产生更深远的影响。底栖功能图可以帮助评估捕捞对生态系统的影响。