Human activity puts our oceans under multiple stresses, whose impacts are already significantly affecting biodiversity and physicochemical properties. Consequently, there is an increased international focus on the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, including the protection of fragile benthic biodiversity hotspots in the deep sea, identified as vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs). International VME risk assessment and conservation efforts are hampered because we largely do not know where VMEs are located. VME distribution modelling has increasingly been recommended to extend our knowledge beyond sparse observations. Nevertheless, the adoption of VME distribution models in spatial management planning and conservation remains limited. This work critically reviews VME distribution modelling studies, and recommends promising avenues to make VME models more relevant and impactful for policy and management decision making. First, there is an important interplay between the type of VME data used to build models and how the generated maps can be used in making management decisions, which is often ignored by model-builders. Overall, there is a need for more precise VME data for production of reliable models. We provide specific guidelines for seven common applications of VME distribution modelling to improve the matching between the modelling and the user need. Second, the current criteria to identify VME often rely on subjective thresholds, which limits the transparency, transferability and effective applicability of distribution models in protection measures. We encourage scientists towards founding their models on: (i) specific and quantitative definitions of what constitute a VME, (ii) site conservation value assessment in relation to VME multi-taxon spatial predictions, and (iii) explicitly mapping vulnerability. Along with the recent increase in both deep-sea biological and environmental data quality and quantity, these modelling recommendations can lead towards more cohesive summaries of VME’s spatial distributions and their relative vulnerability, which should facilitate a more effective protection of these ecosystems, as has been mandated by numerous international agreements.

人类活动使我们的海洋面临多重压力，其影响已经显着影响生物多样性和物理化学特性。因此，国际社会越来越关注海洋的保护和可持续利用，包括保护深海脆弱的底栖生物多样性热点，被确定为脆弱的海洋生态系统 (VME)。国际 VME 风险评估和保护工作受到阻碍，因为我们在很大程度上不知道 VME 的位置。VME 分布建模越来越多地被推荐用于将我们的知识扩展到稀疏观测之外。然而，在空间管理规划和保护中采用 VME 分布模型仍然有限。这项工作批判性地回顾了 VME 分布建模研究，并推荐有希望的途径，使 VME 模型对政策和管理决策更具相关性和影响力。首先，用于构建模型的 VME 数据类型与生成的地图如何用于制定管理决策之间存在重要的相互作用，而模型构建者通常会忽略这一点。总体而言，需要更精确的 VME 数据来生成可靠模型。我们为 VME 分布建模的七种常见应用提供了具体指南，以改进建模与用户需求之间的匹配。其次，目前识别VME的标准往往依赖于主观阈值，这限制了分布模型在保护措施中的透明度、可转移性和有效适用性。我们鼓励科学家将他们的模型建立在：(i) 构成 VME 的具体和定量定义，(ii) 与 VME 多分类空间预测相关的场地保护价值评估，以及 (iii) 明确绘制脆弱性地图。随着最近深海生物和环境数据质量和数量的增加，这些建模建议可以导致对 VME 的空间分布及其相对脆弱性进行更有凝聚力的总结，这将有助于更有效地保护这些生态系统，正如一直以来所做的那样由许多国际协议规定。