Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Mar 23;18(3):e0271477. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271477. eCollection 2023.
Giant kelp and bull kelp forests are increasingly at risk from marine heatwave events, herbivore outbreaks, and the loss or alterations in the behavior of key herbivore predators. The dynamic floating canopy of these kelps is well-suited to study via satellite imagery, which provides high temporal and spatial resolution data of floating kelp canopy across the western United States and Mexico. However, the size and complexity of the satellite image dataset has made ecological analysis difficult for scientists and managers. To increase accessibility of this rich dataset, we created Kelpwatch, a web-based visualization and analysis tool. This tool allows researchers and managers to quantify kelp forest change in response to disturbances, assess historical trends, and allow for effective and actionable kelp forest management. Here, we demonstrate how Kelpwatch can be used to analyze long-term trends in kelp canopy across regions, quantify spatial variability in the response to and recovery from the 2014 to 2016 marine heatwave events, and provide a local analysis of kelp canopy status around the Monterey Peninsula, California. We found that 18.6% of regional sites displayed a significant trend in kelp canopy area over the past 38 years and that there was a latitudinal response to heatwave events for each kelp species. The recovery from heatwave events was more variable across space, with some local areas like Bahía Tortugas in Baja California Sur showing high recovery while kelp canopies around the Monterey Peninsula continued a slow decline and patchy recovery compared to the rest of the Central California region. Kelpwatch provides near real time spatial data and analysis support and makes complex earth observation data actionable for scientists and managers, which can help identify areas for research, monitoring, and management efforts.
巨藻和马尾藻林越来越容易受到海洋热浪事件、食草动物爆发以及关键食草动物捕食者行为的改变或丧失的影响。这些海藻的动态漂浮树冠非常适合通过卫星图像进行研究，卫星图像可以提供美国西部和墨西哥整个海域漂浮海藻树冠的高时空分辨率数据。然而，卫星图像数据集的大小和复杂性使得科学家和管理者难以进行生态分析。为了提高这个丰富数据集的可访问性，我们创建了 Kelpwatch，这是一个基于网络的可视化和分析工具。该工具允许研究人员和管理者量化海藻林对干扰的变化，评估历史趋势，并实现有效的和可操作的海藻林管理。在这里，我们展示了如何使用 Kelpwatch 分析跨区域的海藻树冠长期趋势，量化对 2014 年至 2016 年海洋热浪事件的反应和恢复的空间变异性，并提供加利福尼亚州蒙特雷半岛周围海藻树冠状况的局部分析。我们发现，在过去的 38 年中，18.6%的区域地点的海藻树冠面积呈现出显著的趋势，并且每种海藻都有对热浪事件的纬度响应。热浪事件后的恢复在空间上变化更大，有些局部地区，如南下加利福尼亚州的 Bahía Tortugas，恢复情况良好，而蒙特雷半岛周围的海藻树冠与加利福尼亚中部地区的其他地区相比，仍在缓慢下降，恢复情况参差不齐。Kelpwatch 提供了近实时的空间数据和分析支持，并使复杂的地球观测数据对科学家和管理者具有可操作性，这有助于确定研究、监测和管理工作的重点区域。
