Suitability indices and habitat suitability index model of Caspian kutum ( Rutilus frisii kutum ) in the southern Caspia
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Suitability indices and habitat suitability index model of Caspian kutum (Rutilus frisii kutum) in the southern Caspian Sea Ali Haghi Vayghan • Hadi Poorbagher • Hamid Taheri Shahraiyni • Hasan Fazli • Hasan Nasrollahzadeh Saravi
Received: 20 June 2013 / Accepted: 6 September 2013 / Published online: 19 September 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract The relationship between species and habitat is important in ecosystem-based fisheries management. Habitat suitability index (HSI) modeling is a valuable tool in ecology and can be used to describe the relationship between fish abundance and ecological variables in order to estimate the suitability of specific habitats. In the present study, an HSI model was applied to determine suitable habitats for the Caspian kutum (Rutilus frisii kutum), an important commercial species in the southern Caspian Sea. An arithmetic mean model (AMM) was found to be the most appropriate model for describing the relationship between two of the environmental variables investigated (depth and benthos biomass). However, a geometric mean model explained the evident
Handling Editor: Thomas Mehner. A. Haghi Vayghan H. Poorbagher (&) Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Natural Resource, University of Tehran, PO Box 4314, Karaj, Iran e-mail: [email protected] H. Taheri Shahraiyni Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tarbiat Modares, Tehran, Iran H. Fazli H. Nasrollahzadeh Saravi The Caspian Sea Ecology Research Center, Khazarabad, PO Box 961, Sari, Mazandaran, Iran
relationship when all four environmental variables were used (depth, benthos biomass, photosynthetically active radiation and sea surface temperature). The areas with an HSI [ 0.5 had over 85 % of the total catch indicating the reliability of the prediction of the Caspian kutum habitat using the AMM. The present study showed that depth and substrate structure are the most important environmental variables for the Caspian kutum to select its habitats, and between remotely sensed data, chlorophyll a, photosynthetically active radiation and sea surface temperature are the most critical parameters for near real-time prediction of the Caspian kutum habitat. Keywords Habitat suitability index model Suitability indices Ecosystem-based fisheries management Caspian kutum Caspian Sea
Introduction The current human governance on oceans has contributed to the decline in the health of the marine ecosystems and thus the sustainable use of the oceans (Foley et al. 2010). Habitat loss is one of the most serious threats to the recovery of fish stocks (Hall 1998) and can jeopardize the ability of marine coastal areas to support artisanal fisheries (Crec’hriou et al. 2008). Ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP) (Foley et al. 2010) and ecosystem-based management (EBM) (Pikitch et al. 2004) have thus
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been the focus of recent scientific attention. While MSP monitors the spatial distribution of activities in the ocean in order to protect and main
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