Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas
Effective fisheries and habitat management processes require knowledge of the distribution of areas of high ecological or biological significance. On the Scotian Shelf and Slope, a number of benthic ecologically or biologically significant areas consisting of habitat-forming species such as sponges and deep-water corals have been identified. However, knowledge of their spatial distribution is largely based on targeted surveys that are limited in their spatial extent. We used a species distribution modelling approach called random forest (RF) to predict the probability of occurrence and biomass of sponges, sea pens, and large and small gorgonian corals across the entire spatial extent of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) Maritimes Region. We also modelled the rare sponge Vazella pourtalesi, which forms the largest known aggregation of its kind on the Scotian Shelf. We utilized a number of data sources including DFO multispecies trawl catch data and in situ benthic imagery observations. Most models had excellent predictive capacity with cross-validated Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC) values ranging from 0.760 to 0.977. Areas of suitable habitat were identified for each taxon and were contrasted against their known distribution and when applicable, the location of closure areas designated for their protection. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were developed to predict the biomass distribution of each taxonomic group and serve as a comparison to the RF models. The RF and GAM models provided comparable results, although GAMs provided superior predictions of biomass along the continental slope for some taxonomic groups. In the absence of data observations, the results of this study could be used to identify the potential distribution of sensitive benthic taxa for use in fisheries and habitat management applications. These results could also be used to refine significant concentrations of these taxa as identified through the kernel density analyses.
Cite this data as: Beazley, Lindsay; Kenchington, Ellen; Murillo-Perez, Javier; Lirette, Camille; Guijarro-Sabaniel, Javier; McMillan, Andrew; Knudby, Anders (2019). Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas. Published July 2023. Ocean Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/356e92f3-5bf3-4810-98b1-3e10cd7742aa
Simple
- Date ( RI_367 )
- 2019-01-21
- Date ( RI_366 )
- 2016
- Status
- completed; complété RI_593
- Maintenance and update frequency
- notPlanned; nonPlanifié RI_542
- Keywords ( RI_528 )
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- Marine Conservation Targets
- Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )
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- Oceans
- Classification
- unclassified; nonClassifié RI_484
- Use limitation
- Open Government Licence - Canada (http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada)
- Access constraints
- license; licence RI_606
- Use constraints
- license; licence RI_606
- Spatial representation type
- grid; grille RI_636
- Metadata language
- eng; CAN
- Character set
- utf8; utf8 RI_458
- Topic category
-
- Oceans
- Biota
- Environment
- Begin date
- 1997
- End date
- 2015
))
- Reference system identifier
- http://www.epsg-registry.org / EPSG:4326 / 8.2.6
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ESRI REST
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2.7.0
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FGDB/GDB
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CSV
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TIFF
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ESRI REST
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2.7.0
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Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas
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Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas
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ESRI REST: Map Server
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Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas
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Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas
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Dataset;TIFF;zxx
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Supporting Document;HTML;eng,fra
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Data Dictionary
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- File identifier
- 356e92f3-5bf3-4810-98b1-3e10cd7742aa XML
- Metadata language
- eng; CAN
- Character set
- utf8; utf8 RI_458
- Hierarchy level
- dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622
- Date stamp
- 2023-07-05T07:29:49
- Metadata standard name
- North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata
- Metadata standard version
- CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009
Overviews
Spatial extent
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