Atlantic Marine Mammals (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
{'name': 'Department of the Interior'} Full Details
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Full Details
- Title
- Atlantic Marine Mammals (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]
- Description
- Reason for Selection Marine mammals help identify key areas of ocean productivity and overall ocean health, are regularly monitored, and resonate with a variety of audiences. Marine mammals are often used as ocean health indicators due to their long lifespans, feeding at high trophic levels, and large blubber stores that can serve as repositories for anthropogenic chemicals and toxins (Bossart 2011). This indicator complements the Atlantic marine birds indicator by identifying important habitats in areas too deep for marine birds to reach. Input Data Southeast Blueprint 2023 extent 2019 National Land Cover Database(NLCD) Habitat-based Marine Mammal Density Models for the U.S. Atlantic (last updated 6-20-2022), accessed 12-12-2023 These models use aggregated survey information, distance-sampling, and oceanographic variables to predict cetacean density throughout the region. We used data for all available species with the exception of blue whale, common minke whale, false killer whale, Fraser's dolphin, killer whale, melon-headed whale, Northern bottlenose whale, pygmy killer whale, sei whale, spinner dolphin, and white-beaked dolphin. Those species had significant spatial problems in the Southeast. The indicator used monthly predictions for 11 species: Atlantic spotted dolphin, Atlantic white-sided dolphin, common bottlenose dolphin, fin whale, harbor porpoise, humpback whale (2009-2019), North Atlantic right whale (2003-2019), Risso's dolphin, seals, short-beaked common dolphin, and sperm whale. It used yearly predictions for 9 rarer species/species groups: Clymene dolphin, Cuvier's beaked whale, dwarf and pygmy sperm whales, mesoplodont beaked whales, pantropical spotted dolphin, pilot whales, rough-toothed dolphin, striped dolphin, and unidentified beaked whales. Mapping Steps To identify important areas for each species, use the core area algorithm (CAZMAX) in Zonation 5.Include each monthly density layer for each marine mammal species as a separate input and weight them equally. To account for boundary effects, run all the models across the full extent of the input data (entire U.S. Atlantic). Reproject the resulting source data to Albers Equal Area. Resample to a 30 m cell size using the nearest neighbor method (the source data is 5 km by 5 km cells). Convert from a floating point raster with a range of 0-1 to an integer raster ranging from 0-100. Reclassify to values from 1-10 based on increments of 10. Add in a zero class for land by reclassifying NLCD to identify areas of land included in the marine mammal models, which are outside the scope of this indicator.Assign a value of 0 to all pixels that are not a value of 0 or 11 in the NLCD. As a final step, clip to the spatial extent of Southeast Blueprint 2023. Note: For more details on the mapping steps, code used to create this layer is available in theSoutheast Blueprint Data Downloadunder > 6_Code. Final indicator values Indicator values are assigned as follows: 10 = >90th percentile of importance for marine mammal index species (across the full East Coast study area) 9 = >80th-90th percentile of importance 8 = >70th-80th percentile of importance 7 = >60th-70th percentile of importance 6 = >50th-60th percentile of importance 5 = >40th-50th percentile of importance 4 = >30th-40th percentile of importance 3 = >20th-30th percentile of importance 2 = >10th-20th percentile of importance 1 = ≤10th percentile of importance 0 = Land Known Issues While this layer has a 30 m resolution, the source data was coarser than that. We downsampled 5 km pixels to 30 m. There are a small number of pixels on the eastern edge of the Atlantic marine subregion just south of southern Florida where the Duke models have no data.As a result, those areas are not scored in this indicator. Other Things to Keep in Mind We ran the Zonation analysis across the full East Coast study area because some of the important areas for some species during some months were mostly in an area north of the Blueprint area and just barely extended into the northernmost tip of the Southeast Blueprint marine area. If we ran Zonation only within the Southeast Blueprint Atlantic marine subregion, the indicator would have overprioritized those areas, since they would appear to be very rare features, when in actuality they are common features that just more frequently occur further north. While doing the Zonation run across the full East Coast study area addressed this problem, it means that the percentile calculations are for the full East Coast study area, which included areas outside the extent of the final indicator. As a result, the various classes within the indicator do not cover equal areas within the indicator's extent, as you might expect with a percentile-based indicator—they cover equal areas within the full East Coast study area, and then are clipped down to produce the indicator. Disclaimer: Comparing with Older Indicator Versions There are numerous problems with using Southeast Blueprint indicators for change analysis. Please consult Blueprint staff if you would like to do this (email hilary_morris@fws.gov). Literature Cited Bossart, G. D. "Marine Mammals as Sentinel Species for Oceans and Human Health." Veterinary Pathology Online 48, no. 3 (May 1, 2011): 676-90. [https://doi.org/10.1177/0300985810388525]. Moilanen, A., Lehtinen, P., Kohonen, I., Virtanen, E., Jalkanen, J. and Kujala, H. 2022. Novel methods for spatial prioritization with applications in conservation, land use planning and ecological impact avoidance. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. [https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/2041-210X.13819]. Roberts, J., Best, B., Mannocci, L. et al. Habitat-based cetacean density models for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Sci Rep 6, 22615 (2016). [https://doi.org/10.1038/srep22615]. Roberts JJ, Yack TM, Halpin PN (2023) Marine mammal density models for the U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet Training and Testing (AFTT) study area for the Phase IV Navy Marine Species Density Database (NMSDD). Document version 1.3. Report prepared for Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Atlantic by the Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Durham, NC. [https://seamap.env.duke.edu/seamap-models-files/Duke/Reports/AFTT_Marine_Mammal_Density_Models_2022_v1.3.pdf].
- Creator
- {'name': 'Department of the Interior'}
- Temporal Coverage
- Last modified 2025-03-04
- Date Issued
- 2023-09-20
- Rights
- The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. While the Service makes every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of data provided for distribution, it may not have the necessary accuracy or completeness required for every possible intended use. The Service recommends that data users consult the associated metadata record to understand the quality and possible limitations of the data. The Service creates metadata records in accordance with the standards endorsed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. As a result of the above considerations, the Service gives no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the data. It is the responsibility of the data user to use the data in a manner consistent with the limitations of geospatial data in general and these data in particular. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the Service, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding the utility of the data on another system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This applies to the use of the data both alone and in aggregate with other data and information.
- Access Rights
- Public
- Format
- Imagery
- Language
- English
- Date Added
- October 17, 2023
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Cite and Reference
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Citation
{'name': 'Department of the Interior'} (2023). Atlantic Marine Mammals (Southeast Blueprint Indicator) [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service]. . https://gis-fws.opendata.arcgis.com/content/fws::atlantic-marine-mammals-southeast-blueprint-indicator-2023 (imagery) -
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