Development of a pelagic fish habitat-based model from the
Hawaii longline fishery data |
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Jeffrey J. Polovina, Melanie Abecassis |
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Abstract:
Over the past decade, the most oligotrophic (least productive)
regions within the subtropical gyres of the world’s oceans have
expanded (Polovina et al. 2008). To investigate the response of
pelagic fishes around Hawaii due to this and future climate
changes, a habitat-based model was developed using data from the
Hawaii longline fishery.
We use satellite remotely-sensed chlorophyll a concentration and
sea surface temperature as indices of water masses and define
habitats of fishes caught in the longline fishery based on these
environmental variables following a methodology developed for
loggerhead sea turtle habitat mapping (Kobayashi et al. 2008).
We cluster species with similar habitats and produce quarterly
maps of the spatial distributions of the species groups.
Finally we use the habitat model to examine the spatial dynamics
of species groups in response to environmental changes.
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