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Comparing selections of environmental variables for ecological studies: a focus on terrain attributes
Citation
Lecours, V and Brown, CJ and Devillers, R and Lucieer, VL and Edinger, EN, Comparing selections of environmental variables for ecological studies: a focus on terrain attributes, PLoS One, 11, (12) Article e0167128. ISSN 1932-6203 (2016) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2016 Lecours et al. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
DOI: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0167128
Abstract
Selecting appropriate environmental variables is a key step in ecology. Terrain attributes
(e.g. slope, rugosity) are routinely used as abiotic surrogates of species distribution and to
produce habitat maps that can be used in decision-making for conservation or management.
Selecting appropriate terrain attributes for ecological studies may be a challenging process
that can lead users to select a subjective, potentially sub-optimal combination of attributes
for their applications. The objective of this paper is to assess the impacts of subjectively
selecting terrain attributes for ecological applications by comparing the performance of different
combinations of terrain attributes in the production of habitat maps and species distribution
models. Seven different selections of terrain attributes, alone or in combination with
other environmental variables, were used to map benthic habitats of German Bank (off
Nova Scotia, Canada). 29 maps of potential habitats based on unsupervised classifications
of biophysical characteristics of German Bank were produced, and 29 species distribution
models of sea scallops were generated using MaxEnt. The performances of the 58 maps
were quantified and compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the various combinations of
environmental variables. One of the combinations of terrain attributesħrecommended in a
related study and that includes a measure of relative position, slope, two measures of orientation,
topographic mean and a measure of rugosity-yielded better results than the other
selections for both methodologies, confirming that they together best describe terrain properties.
Important differences in performance (up to 47% in accuracy measurement) and spatial
outputs (up to 58% in spatial distribution of habitats) highlighted the importance of
carefully selecting variables for ecological applications. This paper demonstrates that making
a subjective choice of variables may reduce map accuracy and produce maps that do
not adequately represent habitats and species distributions, thus having important implications
when these maps are used for decision-making.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | multibeam bathymetry |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecology |
| Research Field: | Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl. Marine Ichthyology) |
| Objective Division: | Environment |
| Objective Group: | Ecosystem Assessment and Management |
| Objective Field: | Ecosystem Assessment and Management of Marine Environments |
| Author: | Lucieer, VL (Dr Vanessa Lucieer) |
| ID Code: | 113435 |
| Year Published: | 2016 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 2 |
| Deposited By: | Centre for Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2016-12-23 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-03-23 |
| Downloads: | 11 View Download Statistics |
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