Benthic habitat mapping on the Scotian Shelf based on multibeam bathymetry, surficial geology and sea floor photographs

By V. Kostylev, B. Todd, G. Fader, R. Courtney, G. Cameron, R. Pickrill. 2001

437 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study presents results of a new approach for sea floor habitat mapping based on an integrated analysis of multibeam bathymetric data, associated geoscientific information, and benthos data from Browns Bank on the southwestern Scotian Shelf, off the Canadian Atlantic coast. Based on sea floor sediment maps and statistical analysis of megabenthos determined from photographs, 6 habitats and corresponding associations of benthos were derived and mapped. The habitats are dis- tinguished primarily on the basis of sediment type and water depth. Additional factors are sea floor geomorphology, habitat complexity, and relative current strength. A Browns Bank benthic habitat map is developed as a conceptual model summarizing the understanding of the bank ecology. This study highlights the utility of multibeam bathymetric sonar for interpretation of sea floor sediments and for extrapolating benthic habitat characteristics across large areas of sea floor.

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9def49935a776f5837611eac731baad40136ec6

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Citations in the corpus

Linking temperate demersal fish species to habitat: scales, patterns and future directions (2013, background): “Sidescan sonars and multibeam swath bathymetry systems may now be used to produce accurate maps of seafloor substrates and bottom topography, allowing characterization of benthic habitats across large areas with potentially increased accuracy and decreased sampling times compared with sediment surve”
A review of approaches for classifying benthic habitats and evaluating habitat quality. (2004, background): “At one extreme is the physical or substrate perspective, which has its roots in seabed geological mapping; methods that traditionally focused on defining surface sediment units or formations (Kostylev et al., 2001).”
Combining angular response classification and backscatter imagery segmentation for benthic biological habitat mapping (2012, background): “In an environmentwith increasing anthropogenic activities, there is a need to map and quantify seafloor habitats and associated biological benthic communities (Kostylev et al., 2001; Beaman et al., 2005; Brown and Collier, 2008).”
Variability in mesophotic coral reef communities along the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (2011, background): “There is also evidence that phototrophic corals may increase reliance on heterotrophy in nutrient-rich or light-limited environments (e.g. Anthony & Fabricius 2000, Leichter & Genovese 2006), although this is poorly quantified.”
Benthic habitat mapping: A review of progress towards improved understanding of the spatial ecology of the seafloor using acoustic techniques (2011, background): “Many of the earlier habitat maps were extensions of this geological approach, based on segmented acoustic data sets and incorporating biological information pertaining to habitat from in situ sampling (e.g. McRea Jr et al., 1999; Kostylev et al., 2001; Brown et al., 2002).”
3D visualization for pelagic fisheries research and assessment (2002, background): “This process has been extended to the direct mapping of benthic habitat from integrated sets of multibeam sonar bathymetry, associated geological information, and benthos data (Kostylev et al., 2001).”
On the use of abiotic surrogates to describe marine benthic biodiversity (2010, background): “multi-beam sonar (Kostylev et al., 2001), acoustic Doppler current profilers (Harris, in press) and airborne remote sensing (Mumby et al.”