Abstract

Mobile pelagic species habitat is structured around dynamic oceanographic and ecological processes that operate and interact horizontally and vertically throughout the water column and change over time. Due to their extensive movements, pelagic species distributions are often poorly understood. We use the Maxent species distribution model to assess how changes in the relative importance of modelled oceanographic (e.g. temperature) and climatic variables (e.g. the North Atlantic Oscillation) over 17 years affect the monthly average horizontal and vertical distribution of a keystone pelagic forage species, Atlantic Canadian capelin (Mallotus villosus). We show that the range and distribution of capelin occurrence probabilities vary across horizontal and vertical axes over time, with binary presence/absence predictions indicating capelin occupy between 0.72% (April) and 3.45% (November) of the total modelled space. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that the importance of modelled oceanographic variables, such as temperature, varies between months (44% permutation importance in August to 2% in May). By capturing the spatial dynamics of capelin over horizontal, vertical, and temporal axes, our analysis builds on work that improves our understanding and predictive modelling ability of pelagic species distributions under current and future conditions for proactive ecosystem-based management.

中文翻译：

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对梯形浮游鱼类的时空分布及相关决定因素进行建模

摘要

可移动的中上层物种栖息地围绕动态的海洋和生态过程构造，这些过程在整个水柱中进行水平和垂直交互作用，并随时间变化。由于它们的广泛运动，对浮游鱼类的分布常常知之甚少。我们使用Maxent物种分布模型来评估17年间建模海洋学（例如温度）和气候变量（例如北大西洋涛动）的相对重要性的变化如何影响礁石基上层饲草物种的月平均水平和垂直分布，加拿大大西洋毛鳞鱼（Mallotus villosus）。我们显示，随着时间的推移，水平和垂直轴上的毛鳞鱼发生概率的范围和分布都存在差异，二进制存在/不存在预测表明毛鳞鱼占据了总建模空间的0.72％（4月）至3.45％（11月）之间。此外，我们的分析表明，模拟海洋学变量（如温度）的重要性在数月之间有所不同（8月排列重要性为44％，5月排列重要性为2％）。通过捕获毛鳞鱼在水平，垂直和时间轴上的空间动态，我们的分析建立在提高我们在当前和未来条件下基于主动生态系统管理的浮游物种分布的理解和预测建模能力的基础上。