Developing Theoretical Marine Habitat Suitability Models from Remotely-Sensed Data and Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Patrick Olsen,Lily Gadamus,Crystal Kolden

doi:10.3390/rs70911863

Abstract

There is a lack of information regarding critical habitats for many marine species, including the bearded seal, an important subsistence species for the indigenous residents of Arctic regions. A systematic approach to modeling marine mammal habitat in arctic regions using the lifetime and multi-generational Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of Alaska Native hunters is developed to address this gap. The approach uses lifetime and cross-generational knowledge of subsistence hunters and their harvest data in the place of observational knowledge gained from Western scientific field surveys of marine mammal sightings. TEK information for mid-June to October was transformed to seal presence/pseudo-absence and used to train Classification Tree Analyses of environmental predictor variables to predict suitable habitat for bearded seals in the Bering Strait region. Predictor variables were derived from a suite of terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric remote sensing products, transformed using trend analysis techniques, and aggregated. A Kappa of 0.883 was achieved for habitat classifications. The TEK information used is spatially restricted, but provides a viable, replicable data source that can replace or complement Western scientific observational data.

Highlights

IntroductionThe cultural traditions of the Inupiat, Yupik, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people who live here are still practiced in contemporary times, such as hunting various marine mammals for meat, oil, and other subsistence foods and materials
The Bering Strait region has been occupied for at least 4000 years [1]
This study presented a novel framework for integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

Summary

Introduction

The cultural traditions of the Inupiat, Yupik, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people who live here are still practiced in contemporary times, such as hunting various marine mammals for meat, oil, and other subsistence foods and materials. An estimated 2700 pounds of marine mammals are consumed annually as food by the Inupiat, Yupik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik households in the Bering Strait region, and sea mammal foods have tremendous cultural importance [2,3]. Marine mammal populations in the Bering Strait may experience a variety of stressors related to health impacts of climate change [7], increasing resource exploration, underwater seismic testing, increasing surface vessel traffic [8,9], and commercial fishing activities [10]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion