Bradley Harris | Geology Reports

USGS2019

A seascape-scale habitat model to support management of fishing impacts on benthic ecosystems

Minimizing fishing impacts on seafloor ecosystems is a growing focus of ocean management; however, few quantitative tools exist to guide seascape-scale habitat management. To meet these needs, we developed a model to assess benthic ecosystem impacts from fishing gear contact. The habitat impacts model is cast in discrete time and can accommodate overlapping fisheries as well as incorporate gear-specific contact dynamics. We implemented the model in the North Pacific using fishing data from 2003 to 2017, estimating that habitat in 3.1% of the 1.2 million km 2 study area was disturbed at the end of the simulation period. A marked decline in habitat disturbance was evident since 2010, attributable to a single regulatory gear change that lifted trawl gear components off the seafloor. Running scenarios without these gear modifications showed these policies might have contributed to a 24% reduction in habitat disturbance since their implementation. Ultimately, model outputs provide direct estimates of the spatial and temporal trends of habitat effects from fishing — a key component of regulatory policies for many of the world’s fisheries.

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences↗

USGS2018

Dynamic occupancy modeling of temperate marine fish in area-based closures

Species distribution models (SDMs) are commonly used to model the spatial structure of species in the marine environment, however, most fail to account for detectability of the target species. This can result in underestimates of occupancy, where nondetection is conflated with absence. The site occupancy model (SOM) overcomes this failure by treating occupancy as a latent variable of the model and incorporates a detection submodel to account for variability in detection rates. These have rarely been applied in the context of marine fish and never for the multiseason dynamic occupancy model (DOM). In this study, a DOM is developed for a designated species of concern, cusk ( Brosme brosme ), over a four-season period. Making novel use of a high-resolution 3-dimensional hydrodynamic model, detectability of cusk is considered as a function of current speed and algae cover. Algal cover on the seabed is measured from video surveys to divide the study area into two distinct regions: those with canopy forming species of algae and those without (henceforth bottom types). Modeled estimates of the proportion of sites occupied in each season are 0.88, 0.45, 0.74, and 0.83. These are significantly greater than the proportion of occupied sites measured from underwater video observations which are 0.57, 0.28, 0.43, and 0.57. Individual fish are detected more frequently with increasing current speed in areas lacking canopy and less frequently with increasing current speed in areas with canopy. The results indicate that, where possible, SDM studies for all marine species should take account of detectability to avoid underestimating the proportion of sites occupied at a given study area. Sampling closed areas or areas of conservation often requires the use of nonphysical, low impact sampling methods like camera surveys. These methods inherently result in detection probabilities less than one, an issue compounded by time-varying features of the environment that are rarely accounted for marine studies. This work highlights the use of modeled hydrodynamics as a tool to correct some of this imbalance.

Gulf of Maine↗