Inter- country differences in the cultural ecosystem services provided by cockles

1. Coastal systems provide many cultural ecosystem services (CES) to humans. Fewer studies have focused solely on CES, while those comparing CES across countries are even rarer. In the case of shellfish, considerable ecosystem services focus has been placed on nutrient remediation, with relatively little on the cultural services provided, despite strong historical, cultural, social and economic links between shellfish and coastal communities. The ecosystem services provided by the common cockle, Cerastoderma edule , have recently been described, yet the cultural benefits from cockles remain mostly unknown. 2. Here, we documented the CES provided by C. edule in five maritime countries along the Atlantic coast of western Europe, classifying evidenced examples of services into an a priori framework. The high- level classes, adapted from the Millennium Assessment and the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services, were: inspirational, sense of place, spiritual & religious, aesthetic, recreation & ecotourism, cultural heritage and educational. A further 19 sub- classes were defined. We followed a narrative approach to draw out commonalities and differences among countries using a semi- quantitative analysis. 3. Examples of CES provided by cockles were found for all classes in most countries. Cockles supply important and diverse cultural benefits to humans across Atlantic

landscape Norton et al., 2012) and rarely include the whole range of CES. There is thus a lack of quantitative assessment of the whole range of CES due to difficulties in adopting a suitable methodology and tangible indicators (but see Cabana et al., 2020). In addition, most of the research on CES remains largely focused on terrestrial ecosystems with little attention to the coastal environment (Drakou et al., 2017;. Some 40% of the world's human population lives in coastal areas (UNEP, 2006) and coastal habitats provide the society with a range of goods and services that are both economically and socially important to human well-being (Costanza, 1999;van der Schatte Olivier et al., 2018). As well as provisioning, regulating and supporting services, marine and coastal ecosystems provide a number of CES that are greatly appreciated by the public and people who depend on them for their livelihood (Ahtiainen et al., 2019;Brookfield et al., 2005;Paracchini et al., 2014). Activities such as harvest and aquaculture production of finfish and shellfish provide economic, social and cultural goods especially in remote and economically disadvantaged coastal areas (Krause et al., 2018;Urquhart et al., 2014).
As such, a strong cultural identity is often found within fishing communities and the practice of fishing is frequently characterised across multiple generations as a way of life rather than a means of earning a living (Brookfield et al., 2005;Urquhart et al., 2014;van Ginkel, 2001). Similarly, bivalve culture has been shown to act as a crucial activity for local 'meaning-making' shaping the cultural identities of place and ownership (Krause et al., 2018).
Universal classifications of CES such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES; Haines- Young & Potschin, 2018) are useful tools for comparative studies, particularly beyond national scales. The relative importance of CES may vary across nations and individuals with diverse socio-economic backgrounds (Ahtiainen et al., 2019;Brown & Hausner, 2017;Czajkowski et al., 2015;Milcu et al., 2013;Paracchini et al., 2014). Cultural heritage, for instance, is intricately linked with history and human experiences and, as a result, heritage associations with the same ecosystem features are likely to vary across cultures (Daniel et al., 2012). For example, CES provided by the Baltic Sea marine environment were perceived differently across countries, and between users and nonusers of the Baltic Sea (Ahtiainen et al., 2019). Cross-country differences were attributed to the characteristics of the three countries (including Europe, making it an ideal model species to study CES in coastal areas. Most examples were in cultural heritage, highlighting the importance of this class in comparison with classes which typically receive more attention in the literature like recreation or aesthetics. We also found that the cultural associations with cockles differed among countries, including between neighbouring countries that share a strong maritime heritage. The extent to which cultural associations were linked with the present or past also differed among countries, with stronger association with the present in southern countries and with the past in the north.
4. Understanding the wider benefits of cockles could deepen the recognition of this important coastal resource, and contribute to promoting sustainable management practices, through greater engagement with local communities. This study is an important step towards better integration of CES in coastal environments and could be used as a framework to study the CES of other species or ecosystems.

K E Y W O R D S
bivalves, Cerastoderma edule, cultural heritage, nature's contributions to people, non-material benefits, shellfish size and population density) as well as cultural factors (Ahtiainen et al., 2019). Strong local anchoring of cultural traditions may also play a role. Recreational activity has received the most attention in cross-country comparisons in the literature, and there is a need to assess other types of CES, using a variety of approaches that take into account the complexity of definitions and interpretations of CES.
Comprehensive assessments of the suite of ecosystem services provided by shellfish for both cultured and wild-harvested bivalve species (see Carss et al., 2020;Smaal et al., 2019;van der Schatte Olivier et al., 2018) highlight that the importance of cultural services provided by bivalves is gaining increasing recognition. It has been suggested that knowledge of CES is more likely to motivate engagement from the public in restoration or new aquaculture initiatives than knowledge of provisioning, regulating or supporting services (Michaelis et al., 2020). Yet the CES associated with bivalves still remain poorly researched and quantified (Carss et al., 2020;van der Schatte Olivier et al., 2018).
The common cockle, Cerastoderma edule, is one of the dominant non-cultured bivalve species harvested along western European coastlines, and has a broad distribution extending from the coast of West Africa to Norway (Dabouineau & Ponsero, 2009;Malham et al., 2012). Related species are distributed world-wide and provide similar ecological roles. This cultural relevance to individuals and society is reflected in evidence of interactions passing down generations through historical, contemporary art and the folklore associated with them (Carss et al., 2020). It is clear, however, that further work is needed for a more holistic understanding of CES in cockles, especially beyond national borders.
In this study, we aimed to collate evidence for the contribution of the common cockle C. edule to human well-being and society among countries along the European Atlantic Coast. The specific aims of this study were to: (a) develop a structured approach to quantifying CES; (b) use that structured approach to collate examples of the wider benefits of cockles to humans and (c) explore inter-country differences in the social and cultural benefits gained from cockles.
The intention was to draw on the accumulated knowledge of experts and stakeholders with a strong understanding and experience of cockles, rather than a survey of public perceptions of cockles.

| ME THODS
The study was performed through a face-to-face workshop, and a series of virtual meetings and follow-up activities with small incountry teams of experts and stakeholders from five countries: France, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and the UK. The study was coordinated as part of a research and industry collaboration, under the COCKLES project 'Co-operation for restoring cockle shellfisheries and its ecosystem services in the Atlantic Area', co-funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The participating institutions comprise many of the main research, governmental and non-governmental organisations working on cockles in the five countries. Participants in the study included (numbers of participants in brackets): members of non-governmental organisations (3), representatives of regulatory bodies (7), representatives from eight different cockle fisheries co-operatives (11), social scientists (3), economists (3), natural scientists covering a range of expertise from ecology, biogeochemistry, hydrodynamic modelling to genetics and disease (22), and a few less easily classified stakeholders including a chef, archaeologists and an anthropologist (4). The first meeting comprised a face-to-face workshop held in Vigo in north-west Spain, 10 April 2018, with 28 participants from 11 organisations.
Recognising that the terminology used in ecosystem services is not always clear (Norgaard, 2010), a presentation was given at the start to all participants illustrating examples visually and using everyday language to describe the different types of information being sought in the workshop. Participants were then split into three groups, each focusing on 2-3 sub-categories in the classification: Group 1: Aesthetic, Inspirational; Group 2: Sense of place, Recreation & Ecotourism; Group 3: Spiritual & Religious, Cultural heritage, Educational. Group membership was designed to ensure a diversity of country representatives and expertise in each, particularly balancing natural science and other perspectives, and each group had a facilitator to guide the discussion. After the group work, each group reported back followed by further discussion of ideas and examples among all participants in plenary. As described above, the aim was not to get independent information from different individuals or groups, but to achieve a common understanding of the task from many different perspectives, and to stimulate creative thinking about cultural benefits of the cockle. The collective view here aims for a better reflection of CES provided by cockles than could be gained from individual responses, as the deliberative process can help reveal shared values and the more elusive details of CES (Fish et al., 2011;Gould et al., 2019;. The workshop was followed up over the following months by smaller countryspecific meetings, mostly held by teleconference call or video call and by email. Each country completed their entries in the template spreadsheet provided. Once this first draft was completed, it was circulated to all participants (again to stimulate missed ideas). This was followed up by a second round of smaller focused meetings with a representative from each country to check on potential information gaps. The role of the facilitators in both the initial workshop and subsequent follow-up meetings was to ensure balanced discussion, in order to minimise 'social desirability bias' emerging in the examples provided (Kaplowitz & Hoehn, 2001;Raymond et al., 2014).
An a priori framework defined the major classes and sub-classes of CES broadly based on the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services and Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (CICES v5.1;Haines-Young & Potschin, 2017;MEA, 2005; Table 1).
The CICES classification included Division, Groups, Class and Class type. CES were divided in two divisions, direct or indirect interactions. These were further categorised into groups (CICES codes in brackets), namely: 'Physical and Experiential (3.1.1)', 'Intellectual and Representative (3.1.2)' for direct interactions, and 'Spiritual or Symbolic (3.2.1)' and other 'non-use (3.2.2)' for indirect interactions. The groups were subsequently categorised into classes that we developed and adapted from the Millennium Assessment. From these classes, we then created the sub-classes with a more detailed specification for the CES provided by cockles (Table 1). The framework was tested with pilot data from one country, and revised to accom- Once collated, examples within each sub-class were then described using a narrative approach. To enable data visualisation, the information for each sub-class was summarised in quantitative form (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998), by assigning a score based on the num-   Table   S1). Across all countries (Figure 1 only four examples given across all five countries. In the following text, we describe the range of evidence found for each sub-class of CES, illustrating this with selected examples, and then draw out commonalities and differences among countries. All the evidence we collated is provided in Appendix I (Table S2), separated by country. Eleven examples were provided for the sub-class Folklore. As frequently found in fishing communities, folklore surrounding cockles was common in the form of songs in several countries. The song of TA B L E 1 Classification of the cultural services provided by cockles. Adapted from the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES v5.1) and Millennium Ecological Assessment (MEA, 2005)    Galicia were known as 'Mariscos' (= shellfish) and they had their own symbols and songs (Seixas, 2006). Many historical photographs showcase women harvesting cockles. Cockle harvesting was primarily carried out by women, perhaps due to men out fishing at sea for the day. Cockle harvesting in the Welsh communities of Penclawdd gave the women a valuable source of income (Watkins, 2020).

| Cultural heritage
As far back as 1901 in Ireland, women, often widowed or single mother and daughter, considered their principal occupation to be

| Educational
This

| Aesthetic
Only one sub-class was included in Aesthetic, namely    Figure 8).

| Spiritual & Religious
In terms of the relative importance of sub-classes ( Figure 9; Table   S1), for Cultural heritage classes, Spain dominated the Symbolic and Literature than Art (n = 3 and n = 2, respectively; Table S1).

| D ISCUSS I ON
The cockle is an important cultural species that provides many benefits not only to the people whose livelihoods depend on it but also to the wider society. Previous research highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of CES provided by cockles (Carss et al., 2020). In this study, we collated evidence across five coun- identity (Comberti et al., 2015). As such, for many cockle gatherers, harvesting goes far beyond the activity of collecting cockles and is part of a way of life in a similar fashion to fisheries (Brookfield et al., 2005;Urquhart et al., 2014;van Ginkel, 2001).
Our study also draws attention to differences in cultural services provided by cockles among countries along the Atlantic coast.
Culture plays a crucial role in defining nature's contributions to people (Díaz et al., 2018) and given that Cultural heritage is tightly linked with history and human experiences (Daniel et al., 2012), differences in Cultural heritage among countries are perhaps to be expected. As  (Ignatius et al., 2019). Similarly, beaches in rural Ireland and Portugal were also perceived and valued differently (MacLeod et al., 2002), although in this case the differences in cultural and climatic settings may contribute substantially to this situation.
One less tangible aspect of inter-country differences is the extent to which cultural references are grounded in the present or in the past. In the northern countries of our study, UK and Ireland, cockle gathering is now less of a community activity and the strong coastal connections with cockles tend to exist more in the past than the present. By contrast, in the southern countries of our study, particularly Spain and Portugal but also to a lesser extent France, traditional cockle harvesting is still ongoing and embedded within its coastal communities. Traditions are passed along from one generation to the other and folklore surrounding cockles is maintained. The differences in the CES examples given by each nation support the point that cultural, political-economic and social dynamics influence CES over time (Gould et al., 2020).
Evaluation of CES classes in the ES literature are often directed towards Recreation & Ecotourism with little attention given to other CES, and studies which evaluate more than five CES are very rare (Cheng et al., 2019). Here, we produced data on 19 sub-classes of CES, allowing us to focus in more detail on how representation of these cultural elements differs among countries, and particularly those aspects of a more intangible nature (Chan, Guerry, et al., 2012;Milcu et al., 2013). Many cultural services provide indirect benefit to humans but are generally hard to identify and are therefore often disregarded from assessments, leading to a risk of excluding important cultural values in policy-making (Chan, Guerry, et al., 2012;Fletcher et al., 2014;Laband, 2013). Among the extensive suite of CES identified in our study, many examples belonged to Inspirational, which is generally the least investigated class in other studies (Hernández-Morcillo et al., 2013). This confirms its importance to humans and that it forms a larger part of cultural ser- In particular, the deliberative approach through group activities among stakeholders with a wide range of knowledge and expertise allowed participants to exchange ideas and stimulate new lines of thinking in a more reactive way, guided by the facilitator.
Confidence in outcomes from deliberated group activity is generally higher than from individuals who have not participated in a deliberative process (Kenter, Jobstvogt, et al., 2016). Deliberated groups provide more opportunities for diverse voices to be heard with often different perspectives and interests (Elstub, 2010;. In our study the focus was on stimulating creative thinking and developing a shared understanding of the task, rather than adopting positions on an issue, and the deliberative process helped achieve this. Deliberative process are increasingly recognised as a valuable approach in the evaluation of ecosystem services  as ecosystem assessment requires consideration of shared values (Fish et al., 2011). Additionally, place-based and indigenous values like cultural identity, spiritual and heritage, are often overlooked in ecosystem assessment (Pascua et al., 2017), and in our study, this provided a mechanism to gather this information. Given the shared understanding of the task, and the longer duration follow-on work which allowed participants time to gather further examples, we can be reasonably confident that the differences observed between countries are likely to reflect reality rather than being a result of sampling effort or inherent bias in participant selection. However, differences in the background knowledge or the degree of engagement of the participants may still lead to some influence on the outcomes. Another potential disadvantage of deliberative methods can be the power dynamics, both with respect to those invited to participate and through the dynamics of the process. The deliberative process may not adequately neutralise or may even exaggerate the unequal distribution of power amongst participants (Williams, 2000;Young, 1996). However, if conducted sensitively, deliberative processes can also help marginalised groups to get their voice heard and thus help address inequalities, and be a positive and creative energy in collective thinking (Hendriks, 2009 (Daniel et al., 2012). Overall, the methodological approach used in this study starts to address some of the challenges faced in assessing CES in a systematic way (Cheng et al., 2019).
Setting up the a priori framework required some iteration after testing with pilot data. This revealed some challenges in assessing CES where an example could be assigned to more than one class, which can lead to difficulties in interpretation (Hernández-Morcillo et al., 2013).
Sculptures, for instance, could be interpreted as Art but also Symbolic if they hold significant meaning which itself may be linked to Folklore was placed in Inspirational as we believe advertising draws on natural and cultural features as a source of inspiration. It could also however be used as evidence of tourism when promoting an activity. While the sub-class Gastronomy is hard to uniquely assign, we grouped these examples under Cultural heritage since recipes have a strong traditional and historical basis with regional ties, and which are passed on from one generation to the next. These examples illustrate that it can be difficult to isolate particular CES as many of the classes are inter-related, either by originating from a common theme, or building on one another (Gould et al., 2020). Another reason for this is that multiple types of meaning and value may be present in many of these instances. As long as allocation to classes was consistently applied across the study, and the assumptions were stated, this was not deemed to be a problem, and we recognise that other studies may take different allocation decisions.
Associations between ecosystem services are common and the idea of ecosystem service 'bundles' has currency in the literature (Ament et al., 2017;Bennett et al., 2009;Cumming & Peterson, 2005;. One ecosystem may provide several services (= co-provisioning) or some services may require another (= codependence) (Ament et al., 2017;Bennett et al., 2009). Such synergies are also common among CES bundles (Lee & Lautenbach, 2016).
For instance, locations of recreational activities are often valuable due to a combination of their aesthetic nature, cultural heritage and identity Daniel et al., 2012;.
By engaging with food and food-related activities in festivals, tourists experience the culture and identity of the food-producing region with increased awareness of the associated community (Lee & Arcodia, 2011;Rusher, 2003). Similarly, a rich cultural heritage is likely to significantly affect local artistic creativity through its aesthetical and emotional value, and to have influenced inspiration through time (Cerisola, 2019), and our findings bear this out. In Spain for example, cockles appeared to be a substantial source of inspira- Lastly, we recognise that the focus of our study is on a single species. This has some implications for interpretation of the findings, and is an interesting comparator with ecosystem-based studies. Like oysters, which are well-documented providers of ecosystem benefits (Michaelis et al., 2020), cockles are often the dominant entity or 'keystone' of the coastal ecosystem in which they live. However, some of the cultural values associated with it are not limited to the organism but occur through wider associations. For example shellfish, including cockles, was the symbol of the movement 'Mariscos' in Spain, and some of the valued features such as cockle beaches are dependent on cockles within a wider landscape setting. Analysis for a single species also precludes consideration of many tradeoffs. However, by building up the information about multiple species or components of an ecosystem, this allows a stronger more informed quantification and discussion of the tradeoffs inherent in managing a particular ecosystem, compared with, for example, more simplistic assessments which involve converting one ecosystem type to another (Geange et al., 2019).

| CON CLUS ION
With this study, we demonstrate that information on a diverse suite of CES can be collated and quantified, using a methodology that can be applied to other types of ecosystems and species. We comprehensively describe the CES provided by cockles and compare for engaging the public with issues around cockle management and enhancing the ecosystems which support cockles (Cabana et al., 2020).
As a result, understanding these relationships can help to design and implement sustainable management approaches for these ecosystems, supported by deeper local engagement (Bennett et al., 2009).

ACK N OWLED G EM ENTS
The research leading to this work was co-financed and supported by funding from the European Union-Interreg Atlantic Area Programme through the European Regional Development

CO M PE TI N G I NTER E S TS
The authors declare no competing interests.

DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
The data that support the analysis of this study are available from the publicly accessible repository, NERC Environmental Information