Using species distribution models to guide seagrass management

Modelling the biodiversity enhancement value of seagrass beds

“…Our study provides the first spatially explicit assessment of the biodiversity enhancement value of seagrass beds. We use our modelling & Costello, 2018), restoration potential (Adams et al, 2016;Bittner et al, 2020) and climate vulnerability of seagrass beds (Valle et al, 2014) without considering the implications for associated fauna because of uncertainty about the interacting drivers and spatial patterns of seagrass-associated biodiversity. We find that current seagrass supports 43%-64% more species than comparable unvegetated areas because of positive effects of seagrass bed presence and total cover on faunal richness.…”

“…The spatial distribution and abundance of seagrass-associated fauna may also vary in response to environmental conditions (e.g., ocean temperature, phytoplankton production, pH and dissolved oxygen) that can fluctuate across space and over diel, seasonal, annual and inter-annual time-scales, especially for more mobile fauna like marine fishes (Faletti et al, 2019;Garwood et al, 2013;Unsworth et al, 2007). Additionally, seascape features like habitat connectivity and proximity to anthropogenic stressors can affect seagrass patterns and associated fauna at landscape scales (Bittner et al, 2020;Gilby et al, 2018). However, the relative influence of these potentially interacting factors on faunal biodiversity patterns has not been previously explored.…”

“…SDMs have been used in a variety of contexts for exploring species-environmental relationships and for inferring species distribution, abundance and richness patterns across unsampled areas and under different climate scenarios (Elith & Leathwick, 2009;Ferrier & Guisan, 2006;Guisan & Thuiller, 2005). They have been used to describe the historic distribution of seagrass beds (Bittner et al, 2020), to identify places where seagrasses could survive if restored (Adams et al, 2016) and to project how climatically suitable habitats for seagrass beds might shift with the onset of climate change (Valle et al, 2014). Here, we expand on this body of work by developing a suite of SDMs to predict the biodiversity enhancement value of seagrass beds (Figure S1.1).…”

Seagrass habitat suitability model for Redang Marine Park using multibeam echosounder data: Testing different spatial resolutions and analysis window sizes

“…The current study only developed seagrass HSMs by using a maximum entropy modeling technique. Although this technique showed promising results [ 93 , 94 , 146 ], there are modeling techniques such as ecological-niche factor analysis [ 27 ], random forest, boosted regression tree, and generalized additive model [ 31 ] which are reported to perform well. Thus, future study is required to develop seagrass HSM by using several modeling techniques.…”

Αποκρίσεις των θαλάσσιων αγγειόσπερμων Halophila stipulacea και Cymodocea nodosa στην έκθεση σε νανοσωματίδια αργύρου και διοξειδίου του τιτανίου

“…Οι μεγάλες εστίες απώλειας των θαλάσσιων αγγειόσπερμων γειτονεύουν με πυκνοκατοικημένες περιοχές, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της Ευρώπης, της Αυστραλίας και της Βόρειας Αμερικής (Kemp 2000). Παρόλο που σημαντικές χρονικές μεταβολές στην ανάπτυξη των θαλάσσιων αγγειόσπερμων μπορεί να σχετίζονται με υδρολογικές αλλαγές που συνδέονται με φυσικούς κλιματολογικούς κύκλους, μεταβολές του περιφερειακού υδρολογικού καθεστώτος λόγω δραστηριοτήτων του ανθρώπου μπορεί επίσης να είναι υπεύθυνες για μαζικές μειώσεις της αφθονίας των θαλάσσιων αγγειόσπερμων (Kemp 2000, Spalding et al 2003, Boudouresque et al 2009, Bittner et al 2020. Σε τοπική κλίμακα, οι απώλειες των θαλάσσιων αγγειόσπερμων έχουν αποδοθεί μεταξύ άλλων στη βυθοκόρηση για τη συντήρηση διαύλων πλοήγησης, την αλίευση με τράτα βυθού, τις δραστηριότητες σκαφών και τις απορρίψεις ιλύος (Kemp 2000, Spalding et al 2003, Boudouresque et al 2009.…”