Spatial distribution of sandeel (Hyperoplus lanceolatus) and implications for monitoring marine protected sites.

Increased human demand on the marine environment and associated biodiversity threatens sustainable delivery of ecosystem goods and services, particularly for shallow shelf-sea habitats. As a result, more attention is being paid to quantifying the geographical range and distribution of seabed habitats and keystone species vulnerable to human pressures. In this study, we develop a workflow based on unsupervised K-Means classification units and Generalized Linear Models built from multi-frequency backscatter analyses (95, 300 kHz), bathymetry and bathymetry derivatives (slope) to predict different levels of sandeel densities in Hempton's Turbot Bank Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

How suitable is freshwater sponge Ephydatia fluviatilis (Linnaeus, 1759) for time-integrated biomonitoring of microbial water quality?

Faecal pollution of water by bacteria has a negative effect on water quality and can pose a potential health hazard. Conventional surveillance of microbial water quality relies on the analysis of low-frequency spot samples and is thus likely to miss episodic or periodic pollution. This study aimed to investigate the potential of filter-feeding sponges for time-integrated biomonitoring of microbial water quality.

Dynamic occupancy modeling of temperate marine fish in area-based closures.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are commonly used to model the spatial structure of species in the marine environment, however, most fail to account for detectability of the target species. This can result in underestimates of occupancy, where nondetection is conflated with absence. The site occupancy model (SOM) overcomes this failure by treating occupancy as a latent variable of the model and incorporates a detection submodel to account for variability in detection rates.