British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 OET, UK; National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, Southampton, UK; University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Waterfront Campus, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, Southampton, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Jun 1;626:384-398. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.009. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
In recent years very large marine protected areas (VLMPAs) have become the dominant form of spatial protection in the marine environment. Whilst seen as a holistic and geopolitically achievable approach to conservation, there is currently a mismatch between the size of VLMPAs, and the data available to underpin their establishment and inform on their management. Habitat mapping has increasingly been adopted as a means of addressing paucity in biological data, through use of environmental proxies to estimate species and community distribution. Small-scale studies have demonstrated environmental-biological links in marine systems. Such links, however, are rarely demonstrated across larger spatial scales in the benthic environment. As such, the utility of habitat mapping as an effective approach to the ecosystem-based management of VLMPAs remains, thus far, largely undetermined. The aim of this study was to assess the ecological relevance of broadscale landscape mapping. Specifically we test the relationship between broad-scale marine landscapes and the structure of their benthic faunal communities. We focussed our work at the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, site of one of the largest MPAs in the world. We demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between environmentally derived landscape mapping clusters, and the composition of presence-only species data from the region. To demonstrate this relationship required specific re-sampling of historical species occurrence data to balance biological rarity, biological cosmopolitism, range-restricted sampling and fine-scale heterogeneity between sampling stations. The relationship reveals a distinct biological signature in the faunal composition of individual landscapes, attributing ecological relevance to South Georgia's environmentally derived marine landscape map. We argue therefore, that landscape mapping represents an effective framework for ensuring representative protection of habitats in management plans. Such scientific underpinning of marine spatial planning is critical in balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders whilst maximising conservation payoff.
近年来，大型海洋保护区（VLMPAs）已成为海洋环境中空间保护的主要形式。虽然这种保护方法被视为一种整体的、具有地缘政治可行性的方法，但目前 VLMPAs 的规模与其建立和管理所需的数据之间存在不匹配的情况。通过使用环境替代物来估计物种和群落分布，生境制图已越来越多地被用作解决生物数据不足的一种手段。小规模的研究已经证明了海洋系统中的环境生物学联系。然而，在海底环境中，这种联系很少在较大的空间尺度上得到证明。因此，到目前为止，生境制图作为 VLMPAs 基于生态系统管理的有效方法的效用在很大程度上尚未确定。本研究旨在评估大范围景观制图的生态相关性。具体来说，我们测试了大范围海洋景观与海底动物群落结构之间的关系。我们将工作重点放在南乔治亚岛这个亚南极岛屿上，该岛是世界上最大的海洋保护区之一。我们证明了大范围海洋景观的环境衍生图谱聚类与该地区仅存在物种数据的组成之间存在统计学上显著的关系。为了证明这种关系，我们需要对历史物种出现数据进行具体的重新采样，以平衡生物稀有性、生物世界性、范围受限的采样和采样站之间的细粒度异质性。这种关系揭示了单个景观中动物群组成的独特生物学特征，为南乔治亚的环境衍生海洋景观图赋予了生态相关性。因此，我们认为景观制图代表了一种有效的框架，可确保在管理计划中对栖息地进行有代表性的保护。这种对海洋空间规划的科学支持对于平衡多方利益相关者的需求并最大限度地提高保护效益至关重要。
