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Community ecological modelling as an alternative to physiographic classifications for marine conservation planning

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Abstract

Accurate mapping of marine species and habitats is an important yet challenging component of establishing networks of representative marine protected areas. Due to limited biological data, marine classifications based on abiotic data are often used as surrogates to represent biological patterns. We tested the surrogacy of an existing physiographic marine classification using non-metric multidimensional scaling and permutational analysis of variance to determine whether species composition was significantly different among physiographic units. We also present an alternative ecological classification that incorporates biological and environmental data in a community modeling approach. We use data on 174 species of demersal fish and benthic invertebrates to identify mesoscale biological assemblages in a 100,000 km2 study area in the northeast Pacific Ocean. We identified assemblages using cluster analysis then used a random forest model with 12 environmental variables to delineate mesoscale ecological units. Our community modelling approach resulted in five geographically coherent ecological units that were best explained by changes in depth, temperature and salinity. Our model showed high predictive performance (AUC = 0.93) and the resulting ecological units represent more distinct species assemblages than those delineated by physiographic variables alone. A strength of our analysis is the ability to map model uncertainty to identify transition zones at unit boundaries. The output of this study provides a biotic driven classification that can be used to better achieve representativity in the MPA planning process.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for feedback and discussion from Ed Gregr, Laura Feyrer, Erin McClelland, Greig Oldford, Chris McDougall, Carrie Robb, and Karin Bodtker as well as members of the Canada-British Columbia-First Nations Marine Protected Area Technical Team. The manuscript was greatly improved by two anonymous reviewers. We also would like to thank Kate Rutherford, Leslie Barton, Jason Dunham and others who provided access and answered questions about data sources. Funding for this project was provided by the Canada-British Columbia Marine Protected Area Implementation Team and Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s National Conservation Plan Program and the Strategic Program for Ecosystem Research and Analysis.

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  1. Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, BC, V8L 4B2, Canada

    Emily M Rubidge & Katie S. P. Gale

  2. Pacific Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 3190 Hammond Bay Rd, Nanaimo, BC, V9T 6N7, Canada

    Emily M Rubidge, Katie S. P. Gale & Janelle M. R. Curtis

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  1. Emily M Rubidge
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Communicated by Angus Jackson.

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Rubidge, E., Gale, K.S.P. & Curtis, J.M.R. Community ecological modelling as an alternative to physiographic classifications for marine conservation planning. Biodivers Conserv 25, 1899–1920 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1167-x

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