Identification

Title

2021 NatureScot predictive seaduck model within Special Protected Areas Moray Firth and Outer Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay Complex

Abstract

In December 2020, a recent focus on the marine environment (Marine special protection areas selection process) included the classification of 12 marine special protection areas (SPAs) in Scotland for the protection of seabirds, divers, grebes and seaduck. Seven of these sites include one or more species of inshore wintering waterfowl (divers, grebes, seaduck) as qualifying features. Marine Protected Areas, including SPAs, contribute towards achieving Favourable Conservation Status of vulnerable species and habitats across the Atlantic Biogeographic Region. Seaducks feed upon a range of prey, some of which have specific benthic habitat requirements and/or form biogenic habitat features. In order to meet specific Conservation Objectives, site management requires an understanding of the distribution and extent of relevant prey and associated supporting habitats within individual SPAs. NatureScot commissioned this project to test and evaluate the use of predictive modelling and mapping approaches to identify prey-supporting habitats for wintering seaducks within the Moray Firth and the Outer Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay Complex (OFFSABC) marine SPAs. The project resources include: Project report, supplementary technical report, two html maps for SPA species sample coverage and SPA biotope sample coverage, and a CSV file showing associations between species and biotopes. Predictive model outputs have been produced by mapping the known and predicted distributions and extents of bivalve and gastropod prey, and associated supporting seabed habitats for wintering seaducks within the two marine SPA's.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

NS-000400

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

biota

biota

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Keyword set

keyword value

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2008-01-06

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2011-02-16

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2011-07-06

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2009-11-16

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2012-04-28

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2012-05-25

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2005-04-27

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2015-04-07

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-4.1818

East bounding longitude

-2.9843

North bounding latitude

58.2086

South bounding latitude

57.5662

Extent

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-06-18

code identifying the extent

Northern North Sea

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

43E5

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

44E5

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

41E6

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

44E6

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

45E6

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2009-05-01

code identifying the extent

41E7

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2010-01-01

code identifying the extent

infralittoral

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2010-01-01

code identifying the extent

littoral

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1900-01-01

End position

2019-09-06

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-12-31

date type

creation

effective date

2021-10-20

date type

revision

effective date

2021-10-20

Frequency of update

asNeeded

Quality and validity

Lineage

This specific study was the second phase following two previous studies commissioned by NatureScot (phase 1). An unpublished literature review of the marine diets and foraging behaviours of the wintering waterfowl species included as qualifying features in Scottish marine SPAs was commissioned by NatureScot and completed by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) in March 2018 (Woodward et al unpublished). This review was followed by a scoping study, undertaken by Envision Ltd, in 2018/2019 (Sotheran et al. unpublished). The scoping study identified the principal prey taxa of these wintering waterfowl and aimed to assess the potential for mapping of these prey and associated supporting habitats/biotopes across proposed marine SPAs in Scotland. Prior to the production of predictive model outputs for principal prey species an evidence review and data collation exercise was carried out, and prior to the prey species biotope-based mapping and confidence assessment, an evidence review and estimation of prey occurrence and abundance within UK SeaMap polygons was carried out. Evidence reviews were carried out to supply information to develop and validate the predictive models in which a rapid evidence assessment was undertaken to identify published peer-reviewed literature and agency reports and to extract information that was considered to be relevant to developing and/or interpreting the modelling and biotope mapping. During the data collation exercise a wide variety of potential data sources for prey species records were available and checked by the project team. All species records were supplied to NatureScot in the output IWW_pSPAs_PREY_SPECIES_POINT_DATASET. Only a subset of the data available on Marine Recorder was used to develop the predictive models and test these outputs due to overlaps with other datasets or because of sampling bias. DASSH for example contributes records to NBN Atlas and EMODNET portals so there is overlap between those sources and with Marine Recorder where the Marine Recorder data was submitted for archive in DASSH. After initial consideration data sources with large amounts of ad hoc species records (also known as presence-only records) were rejected, as these records were clearly influenced by extreme sampling bias. In particular the vast majority of these records were from the intertidal zone and unlikely to reflect the overall ecology of the relevant prey species in question. This was a significant issue for this project as the marine SPAs cover the subtidal zone only (although there are important functional connections as the qualifying seaduck features of the SPAs will also use this zone for foraging). The data utilised from the JNCC Marine Recorder Public UK snapshot (v20200730) provides species data for surveys of various types undertaken across the British Isles. Details of methods used within each survey are not available but can be expected to vary considerably, thus representing an unknown level of error and bias within the overall data set. To reduce the potential impact of varying survey methodology, unique subsets of the data were created for each prey species by selecting only surveys that had recorded that prey species. Absence values were not specifically recorded within dataset but were inferred if a prey species was not recorded within a survey sample. Therefore outputs IWW_pSPAs_PREY_SUPPORTING_HABITAT_POLYGON_DATASET and IWW_pSPAs_PRINCIPAL_PREY_POLYGON_DATASET were produced via these species subsets of data. It should be noted that individual records within the output named IWW_pSPAs_PREY_SPECIES_POINT_DATASET vary in copyright and licensing information. Within the IWW_ pSPAs_Principal_Prey_Mapping.gdb there 12 features classes that present data from IWW_pSPAs_PREY_SUPPORTING_HABITAT_POLYGON_DATASET and IWW_pSPAs_PRINCIPAL_PREY_POLYGON_DATASET each, with specific purposes. To model the abundance of prey for each seaduck species within each SPA, the hierarchical two stage approach used by Oppel et al. (2012) was taken, whereby occurrence patterns are initially modelled and then abundance patterns are modelled within areas where a species is predicted as being present. Confidence measures for the modelling-based maps of prey presence (REF) represent the level of confidence that at least one of the target principal prey species is present in a given area. For more details on the methodology please see the project report Mapping prey resources of wintering seaducks within two marine Special Protection Areas in Scotland.

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Accessible via NatureScot under Open Government License (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) except where feature classes have used the IWW_PSPAS_PREY_SPECIES_POINT_DATASET, in which case these available under Open Government License (v3) or CC-BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) depending on individual copyright owners.

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Accessible via NatureScot

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

Data Manager

organisation name

Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA)

full postal address

Citadel Hill

Plymouth

PL1 2PB

email address

dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk

responsible party role

originator

Responsible party

contact position

NatureScot Data Manager

organisation name

NatureScot (HQ Inverness)

email address

data_supply@nature.scot

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

NatureScot Data Manager

organisation name

NatureScot (HQ Inverness)

email address

data_supply@nature.scot

responsible party role

pointOfContact

contact position

Data Manager

organisation name

Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA)

full postal address

Citadel Hill

Plymouth

PL1 2PB

email address

dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2022-03-15

Metadata language