South Africa’s newly approved marine protected areas have increased the protected modelled habitat of nine odontocete species

Abstract

MEPS Marine Ecology Progress Series Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsTheme Sections MEPS 633:1-21 (2020) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13190 FEATURE ARTICLE South Africa’s newly approved marine protected areas have increased the protected modelled habitat of nine odontocete species Jean Purdon1,*, Fannie Shabangu2, Marc Pienaar3, Michael J. Somers4, Ken P. Findlay5 1Whale Unit, Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa 2Fisheries Management Branch, Department of Environmental Affairs, Cape Town 8000, South Africa 3South African Environmental Observation Network, uLwazi Node, Pretoria 0083, South Africa 4Eugène Marais Chair of Wildlife Management, Centre for Invasion Biology, Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa 5CPUT Research Chair: Oceans Economy, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town 8000, South Africa *Corresponding author: purdonjean@gmail.com ABSTRACT: Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important for the preservation of ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity around the world. In South Africa, the role of MPAs in the protection of cetaceans is poorly understood, a knowledge gap that may affect management decisions and future cetacean conservation. Here, we used presence data of 9 odontocete species (namely southern bottlenose whale Hyperoodon planifrons, common dolphin Delphinus delphis, dusky dolphin Lagenorhynchus obscurus, false killer whale Pseudorca crassidens, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin Sousa chinensis, Heaviside’s dolphin Cephalorhynchus heavisidii, killer whale Orcinus orca, Risso’s dolphin Grampus griseus and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin Tursiops aduncus) to predict their distribution in the South African exclusive economic zone (EEZ) using ensemble models. The data were collected from various opportunistic, historical and scientific records spanning the period 1957-2014. Up to 9 predictor variables (sea surface temperature, chlorophyll a concentration, salinity, bathymetry, distance to shore, bottom slope, eastward and northward sea water velocity and bioregion) were used in the ensemble model to predict the distributions for each odontocete species. Model results suggest that some of the species’ preferred habitats are partially (i.e. <5% of the distribution) protected by the established MPAs, but the protection area does increase with the recently approved MPAs. This study provides a baseline for the distribution of the 9 odontocete species in relation to the MPAs, which could facilitate the protection and management of these species in the region and help identify important marine mammal areas. KEY WORDS: Habitat modelling · Species distributions · Marine protected areas · Odontocetes · South Africa Full text in pdf format Information about this Feature Article Supplementary material NextCite this article as: Purdon J, Shabangu F, Pienaar M, Somers MJ, Findlay KP (2020) South Africa’s newly approved marine protected areas have increased the protected modelled habitat of nine odontocete species. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 633:1-21. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13190 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in MEPS Vol. 633. Online publication date: January 09, 2020 Print ISSN: 0171-8630; Online ISSN: 1616-1599 Copyright © 2020 Inter-Research.