A Framework for a Marine Biodiversity Observing Network Within Changing Continental Shelf Seascapes

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Watch (CRW) program has developed a daily global 5-km product suite based on satellite observations to monitor thermal stress on coral reefs. These products fulfill requests from coral reef managers and researchers for higher resolution products by taking advantage of new satellites, sensors and algorithms. Improvements of the 5-km products over CRW’s heritage global 50-km products are derived from: (1) the higher resolution and greater data density of NOAA’s next-generation operational daily global 5-km geo-polar blended sea surface temperature (SST) analysis; and (2) implementation of a new SST climatology derived from the Pathfinder SST climate data record. The new products increase near-shore coverage and now allow direct monitoring of 95% of coral reefs and significantly reduce data gaps caused by cloud cover. The 5-km product suite includes SST Anomaly, Coral Bleaching HotSpots, Degree Heating Weeks and Bleaching Alert Area, matching existing CRW products. When compared with the 50-km products and in situ bleaching observations for 2013–2014, the 5-km products identified known thermal stress events and matched bleaching observations. These near reef-scale products significantly advance the ability of coral reef researchers and managers to monitor coral thermal stress in near-real-time.


IMPORTANCE OF MARINE MICROBES
Microorganisms form the base of the marine food web, play critical roles in global biogeochemistry, and are highly sensitive to ecosystem perturbations both at the bottom and the top of the trophic structure. The timing, duration, intensity, and type of blooms of photosynthetic microorganisms are essential in determining recruitment of organisms at higher trophic levels (Platt et al., 2003).
Bacteria play a central role in nutrient remineralization; as marine organisms die, their remains are returned to the water mostly in dissolved form. This dissolved matter has a wide variety of important consequences for aquatic life, including fertilization of the ocean and consumption and production of oxygen and CO 2 that, over time, contribute to defining the chemical composition of various ocean water masses. There are beneficial, toxic, and pathogenic microorganisms. Some produce metabolites that may have as yet undiscovered pharmaceutical, agricultural, growth regulating, or other applications (Hay and Fenical, 1996;Mimouni et al., 2012).
Some algal blooms may cause harm through the production of toxins, or simply by their accumulated biomass; they can alter food web dynamics, cause illness or mortality, and lead to substantial economic losses. Climate change will likely cause shifts in the diversity and productivity of these organisms due to the expansion of subtropical conditions and the simultaneous shrinking of polar environments (Sarmiento et al., 2004;Polovina et al., 2011;Chust et al., 2014). These changes are expected to lead to profound alterations in bottom-up and top-down controls on marine ecosystems (Frank et al., 2005;Casinia et al., 2009;Doney et al., 2009;Hofmann et al., 2011;Mozetič et al., 2012;Friederike Prowe et al., 2012).
Many of the ecosystem services supporting human activities in coastal ocean waters depend on microorganisms; however, indirect and direct human pressures are significantly impacting these microbial assemblages. These changes can affect fishery catch potential (Glantz, 1992;Cheung et al., 2013) (Halpern et al., 2012;IPCC, 2013IPCC, , 2014Melillo et al., 2014)

Measuring Ecosystem Function in a Dynamic Environment
There are several challenges in defining an MBON to achieve regular assessments of ecosystem diversity and function.
One challenge is establishing an accurate baseline of ecosystem diversity from which to detect and quantify changes.
This task requires developing indices that integrate long historical time series of environmental and biological data into

Making Observations in a Dynamic Seascape Context
Understanding ecosystem responses to climate and system feedbacks requires an objective framework to (1) scale local observations to their regional context, (2) objectively delineate the regional boundaries that define unique water masses, and (3) determine how these boundaries shift in space and time. In defining such a system, it is important to find properties that can be measured quickly, economically, and over large areas. One advantage of measuring tiny microorganisms is that their number in the ocean is orders of magnitude larger than that of consumers, and their total biomass is far larger than that of all metazoans combined (Pomeroy et al., 2007). Furthermore, the various functional groups of microorganisms are typically associated with different chemical and physical ocean properties.
Because of their large numbers, they change the color of the ocean, and these colors can be used as a characteristic index of the biodiversity of these groups.  (Talley et al., 2010;Chelton et al., 2011;Muller-Karger et al., 2013). A system that integrates these technologies provides the capability to measure changes in large dynamic and coherent biogeographical regions or "seascapes" (Reygondeau et al., 2013;Kavanaugh et al., 2013).

T WO ESSENTIAL STEPS TOWARD ESTABLISHING AN MBON
We recommend the following specific actions to construct an effective MBON: 1. Determine the minimum set of observations needed to define ocean biodiversity.  (Lodge et al., 2012;Thomsen et al., 2012;Taberlet et al., 2012). 2. Establish connections between existing international programs and standardize methodologies to enable comparison of data.