Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation of Australia (IMCRA) v4.0 - Provincial Bioregions

A regionalisation of Australian waters (excluding waters adjacent to the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and waters adjacent to the Australian Antarctic Territory) derived from deep-water demersal fish assemblages. A total of 41 onshelf and offshelf provincial bioregions were identified for IMCRA v4.0.Onshelf provincial bioregions are based on the 17 IMCRA v3.3 demersal provinces and biotones identified in 1997.Offshelf provincial bioregions were defined in 2004 as part of a program run by Geoscience Australia, CSIRO Marine Research and the National Oceans Office. They represent units that contain broad patterns in biodiversity, as represented by deep-water demersal fish assemblages, based on the assumption that the demersal fish distributions are a surrogate of marine faunal distributions. Below 2,000 m water depth, the boundaries of the benthic provincial bioregions are defined solely by the NMB (National Marine Bioregionalisation) geomorphic features data set. A total of 24 offshelf benthic provincial bioregions were defined on this basis, including 15 core bioregions representing areas of endemism, and 9 transition zones representing areas of faunal mixing.For IMCRA v4.0 the coastline was replaced with the national 100k coastline to provide greater consistency. The Australian EEZ limit was sourced from AMB v2. Based on a decision by the Bioregionalisation Working Group, the shelf break from IMCRA v3.3 was largely retained, although in some instances the shelf break from the NMB (National Marine Bioregionalisation) provincial bioregions was used.

本数据集基于深水底层鱼类群落，构建了澳大利亚水域（不含赫德岛和麦克唐纳群岛毗邻水域，以及澳大利亚南极领地毗邻水域）的区域化方案。针对IMCRA v4.0版本，共计识别出41个陆架及陆架外省级生物地理区（provincial bioregions）。陆架省级生物地理区以1997年识别出的17个IMCRA v3.3底层鱼类生物省与生物群落区为依据构建。陆架外省级生物地理区于2004年由澳大利亚地球科学局（Geoscience Australia）、联邦科学与工业研究组织（CSIRO）海洋研究部与国家海洋办公室（National Oceans Office）联合开展的项目中完成定义。此类区域代表了由深水底层鱼类群落所体现的生物多样性宏观分布格局单元，其假设前提为底层鱼类的分布可作为海洋动物群分布的替代指标。在水深超过2000米的海域，底栖省级生物地理区（benthic provincial bioregions）的边界仅依据国家海洋生物区域化（National Marine Bioregionalisation, NMB）地貌特征数据集划定。基于此标准，共计定义了24个陆架外底栖省级生物地理区，其中包含15个代表特有物种分布区的核心生物地理区，以及9个代表动物群混合区域的过渡带。针对IMCRA v4.0版本，原海岸线已替换为全国1:10万比例尺海岸线以提升数据一致性。澳大利亚专属经济区（Exclusive Economic Zone, EEZ）界线取自AMB v2数据集。根据生物区域化工作组的决议，原IMCRA v3.3中的陆架坡折带基本予以保留，但在部分场景下采用了NMB（国家海洋生物区域化）省级生物地理区的陆架坡折界线。