Evaluating temporal and spatial transferability of a tidal inundation model for foraging waterbirds

For ecosystem models to be applicable outside their context of development, temporal and spatial transferability must be demonstrated. This presents a challenge for modeling intertidal ecosystems where spatiotemporal variation arises at multiple scales. Models specializing in tidal dynamics are generally inhibited from having wider ecological applications by coarse spatiotemporal resolution or high user competency. The Tidal Inundation Model of Shallow-water Availability (TiMSA) uniquely simulates tides to empirically derive a time-integrated measure of availability for a shallow water depth range defined by the user. To evaluate temporal and spatiotemporal transferability, we employed TiMSA at the development site in the Florida Keys and at novel sub-sites in the Florida Bay (application site) under a different time period (application period). We used foraging Little Blue Herons (Egretta caerulea) as the ecological unit with which to constrain the model’s ‘water depth window’, i.e., r...