Abstract
Seabed Habitat Mapping: From Processes to Patterns Track: Ocean, Coastal, and Marine Resources Author(s): Vladimir Kostylev Habitat mapping is an evolving scientific discipline linking GIS mapping, simulation modeling, statistical analysis, and ecological theory aimed at mapping patterns of the living world resulting from interactions between living and non-living environment. While these interactions are implied in the textbook definition of habitat as "a place where a plant or an animal lives", this definition is not particularly suitable for mapping. Because of its fuzziness, shaded digital elevation models, geological facies maps, seabed texture maps, arbitrary oceanographic classifications, species distribution ranges, etc. were published elsewhere as "habitat maps". In our approach to seabed habitat mapping, we operationally define habitats as mappable units which are relatively homogeneous in their physical, chemical, and biological environment. Similarity of environment within these units and dissimilarity between them depends on scale, and is defined largely by statistically inferred or mathematically modeled ecological and evolutionary relationships between biological patterns and physical processes. Vladimir Kostylev Government of Canada Natural Resources Canada 1 Challenger Dr. Dartmouth , Nova Scotia B2Y 4A2 CA Phone: 1 902 4268319 E-mail: vkostyle@nrcan.gc.ca |
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