Small-scale Mapping of Sea-bed Assemblages in the Eastern English Channel Using Sidescan Sonar and Remote Sampling Techniques

Responses of infaunal populations to benthoscape structure and the potentialimportance of transition zones

“…However, only a few studies have considered spatial patterns in detail over benthoscape scales more than several square kilometers in deep-water environments (e.g., Thrush et al 1998Thrush et al , 2001Zajac et al 2000;Kostylev et al 2001;Brown et al 2002). In this study, logistical constraints precluded a sampling design that would have allowed us to assess how the spatial patterns found may change over time, and it will be critical to do so in future studies given that infaunal populations can exhibit considerable seasonal, and sometimes longer term, variation.…”

“…1982) and to address fisheries questions (Able et al 1987). More recently, researchers are exploring, for example, impacts on benthic communities due to trawling (Thrush et al 1998), infaunal and epifaunal responses to seafloor patch characteristics (Zajac et al 2000;Kostylev et al 2001;Zajac 2001;Brown et al 2002), fisheries responses to habitat variables (Auster et. al.…”

Seabed Mapping and Marine Spatial Planning: A Case Study from a Swedish Marine Protected Area

“…These are essentially used as a framework within which reference sites are defined. Samples of in situ data are then collected from all the detected regions, or the reference sites, so as to validate the classified habitats (see Brown et al 2002;Freitas et al 2003;Jordan et al 2005;Kloser et al 2001;Kostylev et al 2001), and classes are occasionally merged if they can be proven to have non-distinct faunas.…”

“…In this approach, the mapping units are defined on the basis of multivariate species patterns (e.g. peaks of similarity within the continuous gradient of faunal composition, Brown et al 2002), which are in turn assumed to define sets of distinct environmental factors (Kostylev et al, 2001). Eastwood et al (2006) compared top-down versus bottom-up approaches to classifying and mapping seabed assemblages and found that when "the seabed comprises relatively homogeneous, unconsolidated sediments and the main driver is the development of the best possible biological assemblage map, then a bottom-up, unsupervised approach is likely to arrive at a set of assemblages that are defined equally well or slightly better compared with a top-down approach" (Eastwood et al 2006(Eastwood et al p.1544.…”

“…To inform the classification and mapping of the communities supported by the different habitats, effort is geared toward developing techniques to better integrate point-source field data with remotely sensed data (e.g. Brown et al 2002;Hewitt et al 2004;Holmes et al 2008;Jordan et al 2005;Kloser et al 2001;Kostylev et al 2001). …”