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Publications (183)
Fishes inhabiting the mesopelagic zone of the world's oceans are estimated to account for the majority of the world's fish biomass. They have recently attracted new attention because they are part of the biological carbon pump and have been reconsidered as a contribution to food security. Hence, there is an urgent need to understand how environment...
Le 2 février 2021, une baleine à bec de Cuvier ( Ziphius cavirostris ) s’échoue sur l’île de Ré (Atlantique nord-est, France). Les analyses préliminaires révèlent que la mort de l’animal est vraisemblablement liée à des bruits anthropiques. Le lieu probable de la mort de l’animal se situe à proximité directe d’une zone où un navire militaire effect...
Energy content has long been proposed as a fundamental, integrated, and reliable indicator of the condition of individuals as it reflects past bioenergetics and influences future life‐history traits. There is a direct biochemical link between energy density and body composition described by four main compounds in fish (protein, lipid, ash, and wate...
The structure and functioning of ecosystems are largely determined by the interactions between species within a biological community. Among these interactions, species exhibiting similar vertical and spatial prey preferences can be identified, thereby belonging to the same trophic guild. Our study explored some trophic characteristics of a diverse...
The deep-pelagic ecosystem is characterized by significant environmental gradients, particularly in food re sources. The absence of primary production below the epipelagic zone leads to a decrease in food resources with depth. Two opposite feeding strategies have been described for this community in response to this decline in food resources: stoch...
Introduction
The oceanic waters around the Azores host a high diversity of cetaceans, with 28 species of toothed and baleen whales present year-round or seasonally. This high cetacean biodiversity likely plays an important role in the structure, functioning and productivity of the ecosystem, and may increase trophic redundancy, thus contributing to...
Since 1989, multiple stranding events of common dolphins have been regularly recorded along the French Atlantic coast. Examination of the carcasses revealed that most animals presented evidence of bycatch. Using stranding data to infer bycatch levels reveals the highest levels of bycatch to have been recorded since 2016 (4000 to 9000 bycaught indiv...
During ontogeny, the increase in body size forces species to make trade‐offs between their food requirements, the conditions necessary for growth and reproduction as well as the avoidance of predators. Ontogenetic changes are leading species to seek out habitats and food resources that meet their needs. To this end, ontogenetic changes in nocturnal...
The Arctic is a global warming ‘hot‐spot’ that is experiencing rapid increases in air and ocean temperatures and concomitant decreases in sea ice cover. These environmental changes are having major consequences on Arctic ecosystems. All Arctic endemic marine mammals are highly dependent on ice‐associated ecosystems for at least part of their life c...
Intense development of Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) has occurred in the North Sea with several more farms planned for the near future. These OWFs pose a threat to marine megafauna stressing the need to mitigate the impact of human activities. To help mitigate impacts, the Before After Gradient (BAG) design was proposed. We explored the use of the BAG...
The distribution of wild animals and their monitoring over large areas raises many logistical and technical difficulties that hinder the collection of observation data. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has increased significantly in recent years. QGIS, an open-source GIS software dedicated to the processing of geospatial data, enable...
Human activities in the oceans are increasing and can result in additional mortality on many marine Protected, Endangered or Threatened Species (PETS). It is necessary to implement ambitious measures that aim to restore biodiversity at all nodes of marine food webs and to manage removals resulting from anthropogenic activities. We developed a stoch...
Context Assessing the distribution and abundance of marine fauna and the ecological status of coastal and pelagic ecosystems is key to biodiversity conservation, but the monitoring of mobile marine species raises multiple logistical and financial challenges. Aims The project describes the distribution, abundance and taxonomic assemblage of several...
The contribution of animals to biological transfers of essential nutrients in ecosystems is increasingly recognised as a significant component of ecosystem functioning. In the Southern Ocean (SO), primary productivity is primarily limited by the availability of iron in the euphotic zone, which makes animals locally releasing iron-rich faeces potent...
Defecation by large whales is known to fertilise oceans with nutrients, stimulating phytoplankton and ecosystem productivity. However, our current understanding of these processes is limited to a few species, nutrients and ecosystems. Here, we investigate the role of cetacean communities in the worldwide biological cycling of two major nutrients an...
During ontogeny, the increase in body size forces species to make trade-offs between their food requirements, the conditions necessary for growth and reproduction as well as the avoidance of predators. Ontogenetic changes are leading species to seek out habitats and food resources that meet their needs. These aspects are interesting to study in the...
Among natural radionuclides, 210Po is the major contributor to the radiation dose received by marine organisms. In cephalopods, 210Po is concentrated in the digestive gland, which contains over 90% of the whole-body burden of the nuclide. Although previous studies showed that 210Po was taken up independently of 210Pb, its parent nuclide, very littl...
Good Environmental Status (GES) for Descriptor 8 (D8) of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is considered to be achieved when concentrations of contaminants are at levels not giving rise to pollution effects. This study proposes a framework to assess GES in marine waters adjacent to France, including four groups of species (bivalves, fi...
The biomass of deep-sea pelagic fishes could represent more than 90% of the total fish biomass on earth, which
represents an important potential for exploitation. However, this community plays multiple key ecological roles
in biogeochemical cycles and food webs. Information on their ecology and function is needed to plan effective
sustainable conse...
Monitoring the health status of marine mammals is a priority theme that France aims to develop with the other European Union Member States in the next two years, in the context of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. With approximately 5,000 km of coastline and for nearly ten years, France has been recording an average of 2,000 strandings per y...
Cetaceans adjust their distribution and abundance to encountered conditions across years and seasons, but we poorly understand such small-scale changes for many species, especially in winter. Crucial challenges confront some populations during this season, such as the high levels of fisheries-induced mortality faced by the common dolphin (Delphinus...
Mesopelagic organisms play a crucial role in marine food webs, channelling energy across the predator-prey network and connecting depth strata through their diel vertical migrations. the information available to assess mesopelagic feeding interactions and energy transfer has increased substantially in recent years, owing to the growing interest and...
Deep-sea ecosystems play a key role in the cycling and vertical transfer of matter and energy in oceans. Although the contamination of deep-sea demersal and benthic organisms by persistent organic pollutants has been proven, deep pelagic species have been far less studied. To fill these gaps, we studied the occurrence of a large variety of hydropho...
By-catch is the most direct threat to marine mammals globally. Acoustic repellent devices (pingers) have been developed to reduce dolphin by-catch. However, mixed results regarding their efficiency have been reported. Here, we present a new bio-inspired acoustic beacon, emitting returning echoes from the echolocation clicks of a common dolphin ‘Del...
Understanding the linkages within complex and evolving marine food webs is essential to comprehend marine ecosystem structure and dynamics. Carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) stable isotope signatures are recognized to be powerful descriptors of the trophic ecology and trophic relationships within marine communities. Apex predators such as seabirds...
Presentation at the 24th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals [SMM 2022].
"Trophic niche overlap between sympatric harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) at the southern limit of their European range (Eastern English Channel)"
>>> The video of the presentation at the SMM conference can be viewed on: htt...
Our understanding of ecosystem functioning is strongly linked to the study of predator–prey relationships and food web structures. However, trophic ecology has often focused on identifying taxonomic relationships and quantifying the biomass or energy ingested by consumers, but has often failed to integrate the importance of the nutritional quality...
Cetaceans have been naturally exposed to toxic trace elements (TEs) on an evolutionary time scale. Hence, they have developed mechanisms to control and/or mitigate their toxic effects. These long-lived species located at high trophic positions and bioaccumulating toxic elements are assumed to be good biomonitoring organisms. However, anthropogenic...
Chapter 1.1: Purpose and scope
The purpose of this Document is to guide Member States in the review and update of the assessment of their marine waters in respect of each marine region or subregion, according to Article 17(2)(a) in conjunction with Articles 8(1) and 9(1) MSFD, which is due for reporting by 15 October 2024 and in subsequent reportin...
By transferring energy and nutrients from plankton to top predators, forage species play a major ecological role in marine food webs. While large differences in energy densities have been demonstrated among these species, other determinants of their quality remain poorly explored. We analysed 78 forage species from the Bay of Biscay, NE Atlantic, f...
The population of short-beaked common dolphins Delphinus delphis of the Bay of Biscay (northeast Atlantic) has been subjected to potentially dangerous levels of bycatch since the 1990s. As the phenomenon intensifies, it represents a potent threat to the population. Here, we investigated the relationship between bycatch mortality and oceanographic p...
While the importance of oceanic micronektonic species in biogeochemical cycles and in the transfer of matter in food webs is globally recognized, specific knowledge on elemental concentrations and their variability within this community is still poorly documented. Here, we report for the first time in the Bay of Biscay, North-East Atlantic, the bod...
Uncommon fish records may reflect local or global changes of fish composition resulting from environmental changes or anthropogenic activities. Significant records of uncommon marine fishes, including migrant, non-native, cryptic, rare and threatened species, collected in French waters or by French vessels in European waters, observed by scuba dive...
Sympatric harbour (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are increasingly considered potential competitors, especially since recent local declines in harbour seal numbers while grey seal numbers remained stable or increased at their European core distributions. A better understanding of the interactions between these species is critic...
Fisheries modify prey availability for marine predators by extracting resources but also by providing them with new feeding opportunities. Among these, depredation, which occurs when predators feed on fish caught on fishing gear, is a behavior developed by many species as a
way to acquire food through limited foraging effort. However, the extent to...
A l’occasion d’un audit de la Commission européenne sur l’évaluation coordonnée des espèces et habitats marins dans le cadre des Directives Oiseaux (DO), Habitats-Faune-Flore (DHFF) et de la Directive-Cadre Stratégie pour le Milieu Marin (DCSMM), une étude approfondie a été réalisée sur le niveau d’intégration de la surveillance et de l’évaluation...
The first Unusual Mortality Event (UME) related to fishing activity along the Atlantic coast recorded by the French Stranding Network was in 1989: 697 small delphinids, mostly common dolphins, washed ashore, most of them with evidence of having been bycaught. Since then, UMEs of common dolphins have been observed nearly every year in the Bay of Bis...
Mercury (Hg), one of the elements most toxic to biota, accumulates within organisms throughout their lifespan and biomagnifies along trophic chain. Due to their key role in marine systems, cephalopods constitute a major vector of Hg in predators. Further, they grow rapidly and display complex behaviours, which can be altered by neurotoxic Hg. This...
Intense development of Offshore Wind Farms (OFWs) has occurred in the North Sea with several more farms planned for the near future. These OFWs pose a threat to marine megafauna stressing the need to mitigate the impact of human activities. To help mitigating impacts, the Before After Gradient (BAG) design was proposed. We thus explored the use of...
To date, nontargeted analysis (NTA) of halogenated organic compounds in biota has mostly been performed using GC/ MS-based instruments. We intended to broaden the spectrum of
physicochemical properties of amenable substances by taking advantage of liquid chromatography−high-resolution mass spectrometry coupling paired with an electrospray ionizatio...
Uncommon records of fishes may evidence local or global changes in fish composition resulting from environmental change or anthropogenic activities. Significant records of uncommon marine fishes, including migrant, non-native, cryptic, rare and threatened species, collected in french waters or by french vessels in European waters, observed by scuba...
PREPRINT VERSION // Submitted to Ecology and Evolution // Final accepted version: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7739 // ABSTRACT : Competition between the sympatric harbour (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) is thought to underlie some recent local declines of the former while the population of the latter remains stable or increase...
Many conservation instruments rely on detecting and estimating a population decline in a target species to take action. Trend estimation is difficult because of small sample size and relatively large uncertainty in abundance/density estimates of many wild populations of animals. Focusing on cetaceans, we performed a prospective analysis to estimate...
Plastic pollution has become one of the biggest environmental concerns of the Anthropocene as it represents a major threat to both wildlife and human health. Garbage patches in the world's oceans are well documented, but quantitative assessments of floating debris are still lacking in some major areas. The Mediterranean Sea is one such area, despit...
Uncommon records of fishes may evidence local or global changes in fish composition resulting from environmental change or anthropogenic activities. Significant records of uncommon marine fishes, including migrant, non-native, cryptic, rare and threatened species, collected in french waters or by french vessels in European waters, observed by scuba...
In the North Sea, marine renewable energy projects, particularly offshore wind farms (OFWs), have undergone an intense development with potential impact on marine megafauna, including changes in behaviour or foraging patterns. The southern North Sea concentrates both intensive anthropogenic activities (e.g. shipping, OFWs) and high densities of har...
Between the 1st of February and the March 31, 2017, 793 stranded cetaceans were found along the French Atlantic coasts. Common dolphins made up 84% of these strandings, and most of these presented evidence of death in fishing gear. The aim of this work is to test an approach that could help identify the fisheries potentially involved in a given str...
A double-platform protocol was implemented in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel during SCANS-III survey (2016). Two observation platforms using different protocols were operating on-board a single aircraft: the reference platform ("Scans"), targeting cetaceans, and the "Megafauna" platform, recording all the marine fauna visible at the sea surf...
Uncommon records of fishes may evidence local or global changes of fish composition resulting from environmental modifications or anthropic activities. Significant records of uncommon marine fishes, including threatened species, collected in French waters or by French vessels in European waters are reported for the year 2017. They include first, ne...
French Atlantic Fauna. Slope flshes. l. Alepocephalidae (Craniata : Actinopterygii : Osmeriformes). A state of knowledge the French Atlantic slope fauna of the Alepocephalidae family is performed: 12 species are currently recorded from 500 to 2000 m depth.
The incidence of marine traffic has risen in recent decades and is expected to continue rising as maritime traffic, vessel speed, and engine power all continue to increase. Although long considered anecdotal, ship strikes are now recognized as a major threat to cetaceans. However, estimation of ship strike rates is still challenging notably because...
Uncommon records of fishes may evidence local or global changes of fish composition resulting from environmental modifications or anthropic activities. Significant records of uncommon marine fishes, including threatened species, collected in French waters or by French vessels in European waters are reported for the year 2017. They include first, ne...
