Mapping marine biomes of the world

• DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.26635v1
• Publication Date: 2018-03-07T05:01:27Z
• Authors: Dinusha Rasanjale...; Mark John Costello
• Keywords: Biome; Kelp forest; Marine protected area; Marine reserve; Environmental niche modelling

There is no global map of marine biomes, i.e., areas characterized by similar habitat forming plant life forms. We defined five biomes; seagrass, kelp, mangroves, zooxanthellate corals, and saltmarshes. mapped seagrass kelp biomes using species distribution modeling (MaxEnt) occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) Ocean Data Viewer. Environmental data layers were extracted Marine Datasets (GMED) interpolated into 30 arc seconds resolution. The resulting MaxEnt model predicted a geographical to records. In addition, it where previous maps lacked occupies 1,646,788 km 2 . This will be combined with coral, mangrove show spatial extent for use in carbon budgets design Protected Area networks.