Quantifying patterns of change in marine ecosystem response to multiple pressures

PloS One
Scott I LargeJason S Link

Abstract

The ability to understand and ultimately predict ecosystem response to multiple pressures is paramount to successfully implement ecosystem-based management. Thresholds shifts and nonlinear patterns in ecosystem responses can be used to determine reference points that identify levels of a pressure that may drastically alter ecosystem status, which can inform management action. However, quantifying ecosystem reference points has proven elusive due in large part to the multi-dimensional nature of both ecosystem pressures and ecosystem responses. We used ecological indicators, synthetic measures of ecosystem status and functioning, to enumerate important ecosystem attributes and to reduce the complexity of the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem (NES LME). Random forests were used to quantify the importance of four environmental and four anthropogenic pressure variables to the value of ecological indicators, and to quantify shifts in aggregate ecological indicator response along pressure gradients. Anthropogenic pressure variables were critical defining features and were able to predict an average of 8-13% (up to 25-66% for individual ecological indicators) of the variation in ecological indicator values, whereas environmental p...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 18, 2015·Global Change Biology·Donna D W HauserDiana M Pietri
May 4, 2018·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Emma E Hodgson, Benjamin S Halpern
Jul 15, 2016·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Mary E HunsickerAlisan Amrhein

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCA

Software Mentioned

R package “ randomForest ”
gradientForest

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