Analysis of transect data for microhabitat correlations and faunal patchiness

Abstract

Distributional studies of benthic megafauna using trawls, direct count, still photographic, and video techniques are all spatially dependent, and traditional analyses which assume independence between observations are not appropriate. The authors describe a statistical procedure which determines if a species distribution is correlated with microhabitat type and, if so, subsequent patch size analysis is partitioned by microhabitat. Both microhabitat correlation and patch size procedures utilize a randomization protocol which allows for tests of statistical significance, while other spatial statistics have only descriptive value. An example using video transect data taken at a 55 m deep NW Atlantic outer continental shelf site (40°50'N, 70°55'W) demonstrates the types of ecological questions this analysis can generate. -Authors