van der Reijden K J, Ernstsen V B, Olsen J, Dinesen G E, Leth J O, Eigaard O R
DTU Aqua, National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Kemitorvet, Building 201, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Oester Voldgade 10, 1350, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Mar Environ Res. 2023 Apr;186:105935. doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2023.105935. Epub 2023 Mar 1.
Accurate seabed substrate maps are essential for marine management, as substrate is an important component of the habitat type and used as a proxy for the prevailing benthic community. The provision of substrate maps, however, is hampered by the excessive costs of at-sea observations and, consequently, the uncertainty associated with spatial models used to interpolate these observations to full-coverage maps. Here, we tested whether high-resolution distributions of bottom trawling activity, readily collected under EU law, could improve the accuracy of substrate interpolations. Fishing distributions contain indirect information of the substrate type, as targeted species often show habitat preferences and gear types are designed for particular substrates. For two study areas in the Danish North Sea, we demonstrate that including spatial distributions of bottom trawl fisheries in substrate interpolation models results in more accurate substrate predictions. This potentially opens a novel source of previously unused information for improved seabed substrate interpolation.
准确的海底基质图对于海洋管理至关重要，因为基质是栖息地类型的重要组成部分，并被用作主要底栖生物群落的替代指标。然而，提供基质图受到海上观测成本过高的阻碍，因此也受到与用于将这些观测值插值到全覆盖地图的空间模型相关的不确定性的阻碍。在这里，我们测试了根据欧盟法律容易收集的底拖网活动的高分辨率分布是否可以提高基质插值的准确性。捕捞分布包含基质类型的间接信息，因为目标物种通常表现出栖息地偏好，并且渔具类型是为特定基质设计的。对于丹麦北海的两个研究区域，我们证明在基质插值模型中纳入底拖网渔业的空间分布会产生更准确的基质预测。这可能为改进海底基质插值开辟一个以前未使用过的新信息来源。
