50aa1f9901937de4899dfac3cf34d53e English dataset NatureScot (HQ Inverness) NatureScot Data Manager data_supply@nature.scot pointOfContact Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA) Data Manager Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk pointOfContact 2022-03-15 MEDIN Discovery metadata standard 2.3.8 urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326 2021 NatureScot predictive seaduck model within Special Protected Areas Moray Firth and Outer Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay Complex 2021-12-31 publication 2021-10-20 creation 2021-10-20 revision NS-000400 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. Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA) Data Manager Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk originator NatureScot (HQ Inverness) NatureScot Data Manager data_supply@nature.scot custodian asNeeded Database Delimited Documents Geographic Information System Marine Environmental Data and Information Network NDGO0005 Habitats and biotopes Species distribution GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-01-06 revision Habitats and biotopes Hydrography INSPIRE THEMES 2011-02-16 creation Biodiversity GEMET 2011-07-06 creation Biodiversity indices Bird behaviour Habitat extent Habitat characterisation SeaDataNet P021 parameter discovery vocabulary 2009-11-16 revision MCZ 100 2012-04-28 creation Scottish MPA Search Locations SNH 2012-05-25 creation environment International Standards Organisation ISO19115 Topic Categories 2005-04-27 revision Bivalve molluscs Bivalves 2015-04-07 creation 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. otherRestrictions Accessible via NatureScot English biota biota Charting Progress 2 Sea Areas 2009-06-18 creation Northern North Sea ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 43E5 ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 44E5 ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 41E6 ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 44E6 ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 45E6 ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 41E7 SeaDataNet vertical extent keywords 2010-01-01 revision infralittoral SeaDataNet vertical extent keywords 2010-01-01 revision littoral -4.1818 -2.9843 57.5662 58.2086 -3.4018 -1.8747 55.8350 56.5259 1900-01-01 2019-09-06 NatureScot (HQ Inverness) NatureScot Data Manager data_supply@nature.scot distributor dataset 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.