Important marine habitat off east Antarctica revealed by two decades of multi-species predator tracking

From the abstract of the referenced paper:Satellite telemetry data are a key source of animal distribution information for marine ecosystem management and conservation activities. We used two decades of telemetry data from the East Antarctic sector of the Southern Ocean. Habitat utilization models for the spring/summer period were developed for six highly abundant, wide-ranging meso- and top-predator species: Adelie, Pygoscelis adeliae and emperor, Aptenodytes forsteri penguins, light-mantled albatross, Phoebetria palpebrata, Antarctic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazella, southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, and Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddellii. The regional predictions from these models were combined to identify areas utilized by multiple species, and therefore likely to be of particular ecological significance. These areas were distributed across the longitudinal breadth of the East Antarctic sector, and were characterized by proximity to breeding colonies, both on the Antarctic continent and on subantarctic islands to the north, and by sea-ice dynamics, particularly locations of winter polynyas. These areas of important habitat were also congruent with many of the areas reported to be showing the strongest regional trends in sea ice seasonality. The results emphasize the importance of on-shore and sea-ice processes to Antarctic marine ecosystems. Our study provides ocean-basin-scale predictions of predator habitat utilization, an assessment of contemporary habitat use against which future changes can be assessed, and is of direct relevance to current conservation planning and spatial management efforts.The data files provided here comprise the model predictions of the preferred habitat for each of the six species listed above, as well as the overlap results obtained by combining these six sets of results. See the paper for methods used to generate the model predictions and to combine the individual species results.File names for individual species are of the form results_SPP_TYPE.asc, where SPP is one of "afs" (Antarctic fur seal), "ap" (Adelie penguin), "ep" (emperor penguin), "lma" (light-mantled albatross), "ses" (southern elephant seal), or "ws" (Weddell seal. TYPE is either "mean" (mean estimate of habitat preference) or "iqr" (inter-quartile range of uncertainty in the estimate; see paper for details). Data values for individual species results are percentiles of the study area, so that values of 90% or higher are pixels corresponding to the most important 10% of habitat for that species, values of 80% or greater are the top 20% of habitat, and so on.The overlap results files are named overlay_results_mean.asc and overlay_results_iqr.asc. Values in these files represent the average of the top four individual species results in a given pixel (see paper for details).

引自相关论文摘要：卫星遥测数据是海洋生态系统管理与保护活动中获取动物分布信息的核心数据源。本研究使用了南大洋东南极海域长达二十年的遥测数据，针对春夏季时段，为6种广泛分布、数量丰富的中上层及顶级捕食者物种构建了栖息地利用模型，分别为：阿德利企鹅（Adelie penguin, *Pygoscelis adeliae*）、帝企鹅（emperor penguin, *Aptenodytes forsteri*）、淡翅信天翁（light-mantled albatross, *Phoebetria palpebrata*）、南极海狗（Antarctic fur seal, *Arctocephalus gazella*）、南象海豹（southern elephant seal, *Mirounga leonina*）及威德尔海豹（Weddell seal, *Leptonychotes weddellii*）。整合上述模型的区域预测结果，可识别出被多个物种共同利用的区域，此类区域往往具备极高的生态重要性。此类区域覆盖东南极海域的全部经度范围，其共同特征为：紧邻南极大陆及北部亚南极岛屿的繁殖种群栖息地，且与海冰动态变化密切相关，尤其是冬季冰间湖的分布区域。这些重要栖息地区域，同时与诸多被报道出海冰季节变化趋势最显著的区域高度吻合。本研究结果凸显了近岸过程与海冰动态对南极海洋生态系统的重要意义。本研究提供了大洋盆地尺度下捕食者栖息地利用的预测结果，同时构建了当前栖息地使用状况的评估基准，可用于后续生态变化的对比分析，且对当前的保护规划与空间管理工作具有直接参考价值。本次提供的数据文件包含上述6个物种的适宜栖息地模型预测结果，以及整合6组物种结果后得到的物种重叠分布结果。模型预测生成及单物种结果整合的具体方法，请参阅相关论文。单物种结果文件的命名格式为"results_SPP_TYPE.asc"，其中SPP为以下物种缩写之一："afs"（南极海狗，Antarctic fur seal）、"ap"（阿德利企鹅，Adelie penguin）、"ep"（帝企鹅，emperor penguin）、"lma"（淡翅信天翁，light-mantled albatross）、"ses"（南象海豹，southern elephant seal）及"ws"（威德尔海豹，Weddell seal）；TYPE则为"mean"（栖息地偏好的均值估计值）或"iqr"（估计值不确定性的四分位距，详细说明请参阅论文）。单物种结果的数据值为研究区域的百分位数：例如，数值大于等于90%的像素，对应该物种10%的核心栖息地；数值大于等于80%的像素，对应该物种20%的核心栖息地，以此类推。物种重叠分布结果文件命名为"overlay_results_mean.asc"与"overlay_results_iqr.asc"，文件中的数值代表对应像素内排名前四的单物种结果的平均值（详细说明请参阅论文）。