Predicting estuarine faunal assemblages using enduring environmental surrogates, with applications in systematic conservation planning

摘要

Conservation planning in estuaries has lagged behind that in terrestrial and marine areas, despite these valuable ecosystems being among the most degraded. The core of any such approach is a reliable habitat classification and inventory of target biota. These data, and particularly the latter, are often lacking at the local-regional scales most relevant to estuarine management. This study presents a quantitative approach for predicting the likely fish and benthic invertebrate assemblages at any unsampled estuarine site using readily-obtainable and enduring biophysical attributes. We apply this scheme to an urbanised estuary and predict the above faunas throughout its entire nearshore zone. These data are then used to systematically design an exploratory spatially-efficient reserve that meets representation targets for numerous faunal conservation features, and test the ability of an existing, unsystematically-derived Marine Park to do the same.