Mapping benthic ecological diversity and interactions with bottom-contact fishing on the Flemish Cap (northwest Atlantic)

The ecological diversity of benthic invertebrates from bottom trawl surveys was mapped for the Flemish Cap, a plateau of ~200 km radius in the northwest Atlantic. Species density (SpD), the exponential Shannon diversity index (eH′) and Heip’s index of evenness (') were measured at different spatial scales. Continuous surfaces of each were created to 2000 m depth using predictive distribution models based on random forest (RF) algorithms. When fishing effort was included as an independent variable in the RF models, it was the most important predictor of sample SpD but unimportant in predicting... Mehr ...