Optimization of environmental variables in habitat suitability modeling for mantis shrimp Oratosquilla oratoria in the Haizhou Bay and adjacent waters

Abstract

Habitat suitability index (HSI) models have been widely used to analyze the relationship between species abundance and environmental factors, and ultimately inform management of marine species. The response of species abundance to each environmental variable is different and habitat requirements may change over life history stages and seasons. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the optimal combination of environmental variables in HSI modelling. In this study, generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to determine which environmental variables to be included in the HSI models. Significant variables were retained and weighted in the HSI model according to their relative contribution (%) to the total deviation explained by the boosted regression tree (BRT). The HSI models were applied to evaluate the habitat suitability of mantis shrimp Oratosquilla oratoria in the Haizhou Bay and adjacent areas in 2011 and 2013–2017. Ontogenetic and seasonal variations in HSI models of mantis shrimp were also examined. Among the four models (non-optimized model, BRT informed HSI model, GAM informed HSI model, and both BRT and GAM informed HSI model), both BRT and GAM informed HSI model showed the best performance. Four environmental variables (bottom temperature, depth, distance offshore and sediment type) were selected in the HSI models for four groups (spring-juvenile, spring-adult, fall-juvenile and fall-adult) of mantis shrimp. The distribution of habitat suitability showed similar patterns between juveniles and adults, but obvious seasonal variations were observed. This study suggests that the process of optimizing environmental variables in HSI models improves the performance of HSI models, and this optimization strategy could be extended to other marine organisms to enhance the understanding of the habitat suitability of target species.