What is benthic habitat mapping, how is it accomplished, and how has that changed over time? We query the published literature to answer these questions and synthesize the results quantitatively to provide a comprehensive review of the field over the past three decades. Categories of benthic habitat maps are differentiated unambiguously by the response variable (i.e., the subject being mapped) rather than the approaches used to produce the map. Additional terminology in the literature is clarified and defined based on provenance, statistical criteria, and common usage. Mapping approaches, models, data sets, technologies, and a range of other attributes are reviewed based on their application, and we document changes to the ways that these components have been integrated to map benthic habitats over time. We found that the use of acoustic remote sensing has been surpassed by optical methods for obtaining benthic environmental data. Although a wide variety of approaches are employed to ground truth habitat maps, underwater imagery has become the most common validation tool – surpassing physical sampling. The use of empirical machine learning models to process these data has increased dramatically over the past 10 years, and has superseded expert manual interpretation. We discuss how map products derived from these data and approaches are used to address ecological questions in the emerging field of seascape ecology, and how remote sensing technologies and field survey logistics pose different challenges to this research field across benthic ecosystems from intertidal and shallow sublittoral regions to the deep ocean. Outstanding challenges are identified and discussed in context with the trajectory of the field. 

Benthic habitat mapping: A review of three decades of mapping biological patterns on the seafloor

Patterns of fish movement across tidal cycles within mangroves remain a poorly understood topic. The scarcity of such information may be the result of the difficulty in sampling these habitats in meso- and macrotidal areas. Here, we attempted to gain a thorough understanding of fish cross-habitat movements and their migration patterns along tidal cycles by characterizing the structural roles that different mangrove microhabitats (e.g. forest and adjacent estuarine habitat) may have on fish assemblages. To achieve this, we placed underwater wide-angle cameras at different positions within the mangrove ecotone and sampled along entire tidal cycles within 15 mangrove habitats located along the Brazilian central coast. Our results showed that sequential patterns of fish occupancy (i.e. identity, diversity and abundance) were coupled to microhabitat characteristics, and those were contingent on the prevalent tidal stages. We observed clear species-specific associations forming distinct subassemblages along a tidal cycle. Mangrove edges, rather than any other habitat types, were pathways of fish migration. Our results revealed that, as a whole, the mangrove ecotone is used by the entire fish assemblage and that tidal cycles lead to sequential microhabitats use having strong structuring roles and leading to predictable subassemblages recombination. Such distinct “assemblage-microhabitat” couplings along tidal cycles highlight important interactive effects that these variables may have on migratory and fish behavioural patterns. Overall, we highlight that within mangroves, the benefits that fish receive from sequential microhabitat are highly context dependant and clearly reflect tidal effects.

Tidal migration and cross-habitat movements of fish assemblage within a mangrove ecotone

Chen, Q.; Li, J.; Zhang, L.; Lu, H.; Ren, H., and Jian, S., 2015. Changes in the macrobenthic faunal community during succession of a mangrove forest at Zhanjiang, South China. A chronosequence was used to study the community structure of the macrobenthic faunal community during succession of the mangrove forest at Zhanjiang, South China. The four successional stages studied were (from primary to late) unvegetated shoal, the Avicennia marina community, the Aegiceras corniculatum community, and the Bruguiera gymnorrhiza + Rhizophora stylosa community. Faunal density, the diversity index, species richness, and evenness index were highest in the unvegetated shoal (189 individuals/m2, 1.97, 3.48, and 0.74, respectively, in the wet season; 105 individuals/m2, 1.77, 2.20, and 0.84, respectively, in the dry season) and lowest in the B. gymnorrhiza + R. stylosa community (35 individuals/m2, 1.04, 1.10, and 0.57, respectively, in the wet season; 46 individuals/m2, 0.86, 1.16, and 0.66, respectively, in th...

Changes in the Macrobenthic Faunal Community during Succession of a Mangrove Forest at Zhanjiang, South China

Extreme drought scenario shapes different patterns of Chironomid coexistence in reservoirs in a semi-arid region

—A comparative analysis of the variability of the species structure of macrozoobenthos communities in small and medium rivers of the Middle and Lower Volga river basin has been carried out. The statistically significant influence of the natural climatic zone, where the watercourse is located, and manifestation of the latitudinal gradient of biodiversity are shown. A list of indicator species has been made for each geographical zone identified using different criteria of biotopical distribution. Based on the analysis, the indicator value (IndVal) index, which takes into account the zonal distribution of both the occurrence frequencies of a species and its abundance ratios, was recognized as the most adequate. Association rules that contain combinations of species that most frequently occur together in hydrobiological tests have been formulated using the Apriory algorithm.

Estimation of the Zonal Distribution of Species of Bottom Communities in Lowland Rivers of the Middle and Lower Volga River Basin

Hydrological, hydrochemical, and hydrobiological data for five saline rivers of the arid Lake Elton region were analyzed. We found that interactions between plankton and benthic communities, in particular, between macrozoobenthos, meiobenthos and zooplankton, created mixed ecological groups of species. Abundances of plankton and bottom communities significantly correlated, which indicated that there is a close relationship between them due to biotic interactions and their similar responses to the effects of environmental factors. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analyses, the construction of hierarchical trees and species diversity models, the spatial correlation Mantel test, etc., were used to study the structure of communities in strongly disbalanced ecosystems of highly mineralized rivers. Indicator species were established by the TWINSPAN procedure. Our results demonstrated that plankton and bottom communities of the saline rivers can be represented as specific consortia or structural units of the river ecosystems.

Plankton and Bottom Communities in the Saline Rivers of Lake Elton Basin: Statistical Analysis of Dependences

Mathematical aspects of predicting water quality class based on data of hydrobiological analysis with the use of pattern recognition are considered. A series of calculations of indicator valences of zoobenthos was performed using saprobic analysis by the M. Zelinka–P. Marvan method based on the occurrence of aquatic animals in different types of water bodies. Models using nonlinear optimization methods for the recognition of water quality classes by zoobenthos are proposed. Detailed comparative analysis is made for the results obtained from the observational data on small rivers in the Samara region.

Assessing Surface Water Quality Based on Indicator Zoobenthos Species

The dynamics of benthic communities of various reaches of the Kuibyshev Reservoir over a long-term observation period 1966 to 2016 has been statistically analyzed The results of a comparison of the spatial-temporal distribution of structural indicators of chironomid (Chironomidae) communities, including the species diversity and abundance of 48 taxa based on hydrobiological survey data in nine large parts of the reservoir for different years, are presented Nonparametric analysis of variance revealed a high statistical significance of the variability of the species composition of benthic communities under the influence of temporal and spatial factors Using multidimensional ordination and generalized Procrustes analysis, the dynamics of the distribution of ecosystem objects (individual species and areas) in the coordinates of two latent axes of maximum variation is shown A geometric analysis of the multidimensional trajectories of changes in the community of aquatic organisms in individual reaches for different periods of time is carried out Similar developmental processes of chironomid communities were revealed in a longitudinal succession of reaches on the former channel and sunken floodplain, while the analogous structural characteristics of the Kamskiy reach and eutrophic Cheremshanskiy Bay are specific The priority role of chironomids as the most important indicator group necessary for biotic assessment of long-term (50 years) changes in the ecological state of a large reservoir is considered

Regularities of Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Chironomid Communities (Chironomidae, Diptera) in the Kuibyshev Reservoir

Statistical methods for assessing the spatial distribution of benthic communities in different parts of watercourses have been considered as applied to lowland rivers of the Lower Volga region. The applicability domains are described for different response models, gradient analysis, and random skewers methods, which are used to analyze the distribution of aquatic organisms in bottom sediments. Stationarity and autocorrelation criteria for the description of generalized characteristics of macrozoobenthos communities are analyzed. The problems of identification of statistically significant isolated zones at whose boundaries the succession change of the species composition of aquatic organisms are discussed. The results of nonparametric dispersion analysis of species similarity matrices, the formation of dendrites, and the search for barriers between individual areas are given (based on Delaunay triangulation and Monmonier’s maximal-diversity algorithm).

Statistical Analysis of Structural Variations of Benthic Communities and Testing the Hypothesis of River Continuum

The results of applying SHE analysis are discussed in regards to a comparison of three cumulative curves corresponding to species richness (biodiversity), Shannon-Weaver diversity index (entropy), and evenness index. The applicability of this method is justified practically for the allocation of “homogenous” sites of the watercourse and margins of significant shifts in the biocenose structure; Sok River (Saratov Reservoir tributary), an average lowland river, was used as a sample study site.

Method of allocating biotope margins in watercourses using biodiversity indexes applied to benthic communities

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