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Marine Ecology Progress Series

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MEPS 535:259-284 (2015)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11378

REVIEW
Spatial scale and geographic context in benthic habitat mapping: review and future directions

Vincent Lecours1,2,*, Rodolphe Devillers1,2, David C. Schneider3, Vanessa L. Lucieer4, Craig J. Brown2,5, Evan N. Edinger2,6

1Marine Geomatics Research Lab, Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador A1B 3X9, Canada
2Marine Habitat Mapping Research Group, Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador A1B 3X9, Canada
3Department of Ocean Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador A1K 3E6, Canada
4Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Tasmania 7004, Australia
5Nova Scotia Community College, Nova Scotia B2Y 0A5, Canada
6Department of Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador A1B 3X9, Canada
*Corresponding author:

ABSTRACT: Understanding the effects of scale is essential to the understanding of natural ecosystems, particularly in marine environments where sampling is more limited and sporadic than in terrestrial environments. Despite its recognized importance, scale is rarely considered in benthic habitat mapping studies. Lack of explicit statement of scale in the literature is an impediment to better characterization of seafloor pattern and process. This review paper highlights the importance of incorporating ecological scaling and geographical theories in benthic habitat mapping. It reviews notions of ecological scale and benthic habitat mapping, in addition to the way spatial scale influences patterns and processes in benthic habitats. We address how scale is represented in geographic data, how it influences their analysis, and consequently how it influences our understanding of seafloor ecosystems. We conclude that quantification of ecological processes at multiple scales using spatial statistics is needed to gain a better characterization of species-habitat relationships. We offer recommendations on more effective practices in benthic habitat mapping, including sampling that covers multiple spatial scales and that includes as many environmental variables as possible, adopting continuum-based habitat characterization approaches, using statistical analyses that consider the spatial nature of data, and explicit statement of the scale at which the research was conducted. We recommend a set of improved standards for defining benthic habitat. With these standards benthic habitats can be defined as ‘areas of seabed that are (geo)statistically significantly different from their surroundings in terms of physical, chemical and biological characteristics, when observed at particular spatial and temporal scales’.


KEY WORDS: Spatial scale · Benthic habitat mapping · Multiscale · Spatial statistics · Marine ecology · Spatial analysis · Surrogacy · Species distribution modelling


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Cite this article as: Lecours V, Devillers R, Schneider DC, Lucieer VL, Brown CJ, Edinger EN (2015) Spatial scale and geographic context in benthic habitat mapping: review and future directions. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 535:259-284. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11378

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