1. Landscape Ecology in the Marine Environment
Erin Murphy

2. On a landscape ecology of a harlequin environment: the marine landscape (Jelinski, 2014)
Marine landscape is a mosaic of resource and environmental patches
Issues of heterogeneity, scale, patchiness, hierarchy and connectivity are critical in marine systems
Goal: Make a case for the application of landscape ecology to study marine systems

3. Patchiness and structure in the marine landscape
Both abiotic and biotic factors create patchiness in marine systems
The transport of energy, resources and organisms through the fluid- medium is important for patch structure and configuration
Abiotic features
Biotic features
Salinity
Predator-prey interactions
Temperature
Primary producers
Thermal refugia
Spawning distribution
Upwelling
Foraging behaviors
Hydrographic fronts
Hydraulic flow

4. Landscape ecology in a marine context
General absence of landscape ecology perspective in marine systems
Marine Ecosystem
Application of LE
Example
Benthic
Explicit in several studies
Algal accumulation on beaches
Pelagic
Few studies
Reef fish assemblages
Applied conservation
Deemed critical by many
Connectivity for MPAs

5. Landscapes and seascapes: Where’s the problem?
“Landscape” terminology inherently seen as terrestrial unit
Author response: Forman (1995) definition is applicable to marine systems
Marine landscapes have unstable components which blur the linkage between physical and biological processes
Author response: This is an issue of scale, but same principles
hold true

6. Landscapes and seascapes: Where’s the problem?
Open ocean systems are often viewed as homogenous
Author response: Marine systems simply have different scales of
importance. New technology will help.
Concept of ecosystems has not been widely accepted. Marine systems have greater openness of boundaries
Author response: Concept of relative boundedness is one way to
understand the controls of ecosystem dynamics

7. Conclusion
Potential for Landscape Ecology in marine systems has been discussed since Steele (1989)
Need for cross-fertilization between marine and terrestrial ecology
Calls for alignment have been largely unheeded.
Landscape Ecology approach can have impactful implications in marine systems

8. Influence of landscape structure on reef fish assemblages
Rikki Grober-Dunsmore, Thomas K. Frazer, James P. Beets, William J. Lindberg, Paul Zwick, Nicholas A. Funicelli
2007
An example of the landscape ecology approach for a pelagic system

9. Landscape ecology and coral reefs
A landscape ecology approach has proven valuable for terrestrial land management
Reefs are a complex mosaic of patches
Can a landscape ecology approach be used for coral reef management?

10. Background
Current understandings of reef fish assemblages are at small spatial scales
Large-scale determinants of assemblages are desired by managers
Understanding the relative importance of habitat features at different spatial scales is important for management.

11. Goals of this study This study looks at the utility of:
landscape metrics,
Individual habitat features, and
fine-scale habitat variation
for predicting reef fish assemblages.

12. Study area 20 sites were sampled, 14 in 1994 and 6 in 2001
Landscape features varied
Coral cover, morphology, and
depth were consistent
26 discrete habitat classes
were aggregated into 9

13. Reef fish sampling
Fish sampling: 8-20 “point” sample per reef

14. Habitat sampling 14 metrics Land-scape metric were calculated at 100m
Ppmc and PCA were used
Fine-scale: rugosity
Multiple regression analyses

15. Results – Landscape Structure
PCA: 4 dominant components of variation
These components explained ~80% of variance
Principal components explained few reef fish assemblage parameters
Cumulative and mean species richness were marginally correlated with PC4

16. Reef fish assemblage structure
Configuration was a poor predictor of assemblage structure
Parameters were not correlated with reef size or habitat diversity
Reef context was correlated with 13/30 parameters
Areal seagrass coverage – species richness, and MIFs
Areal reef coverage – adult piscivores
Rugosity:
only 5 parameters correlated
Never the single explanatory variable

17. Discussion Parameter Predictor quality Discussion Reef Context Good
Consistent with ecology of each group
Matrix
Likely even more in small reefs
Principal components (composite index)
Poor
Difficult to interpret ecological meaning; may contain too much info
Habitat Diversity (composite index)
Definition of diversity may limit this
Configuration measures
Corroborated Pittman et al. (2004)
Reef size
May be consequence of scale
Rugosity
May be a ineffective measure of topo. complexity at whole reef scale

18. Key takeaways
Challenge the effectiveness of generic landscape indices for developing protected areas at the scale of individual reefs
Context matters, matrix matters
Specific landscape features are associated with particular groups
Some at larger scales than previously recognized
Should consider fine- and landscape-scale features for management

19. Conclusion
Overall there are clear benefits that could come from applying landscape ecology theory to marine ecosystems
Challenges do exist that make application difficult
Need better alignment of terrestrial and marine theory
Need to strongly consider differences between the systems

20. Thank You
Questions?