Habitat Classifcation

Diadromous fish migrate between freshwater and marine habitats to complete essential life history stages. In New England, this group of fish is represented by anadromous species such as river herring that mature in the ocean and undergo spring spawning runs to freshwater habitat, and by a single catadromous fish, the American eel, that spawn at sea and the young migrate to freshwater habitat to reside until maturation. The origin of diadromy is not certain, but likely evolved as a selective advantage in the form of higher survival over a life history that did not switch habitats. Most anadromous fish in New England have a demersal or semi-demersal egg that incubates in contact with the substrata where spawning occurred. The success of this reproductive strategy is dependent on elevated spring flows and suitable water and habitat quality. Diadromous fish populations on the Atlantic coast of North America have declined in recent decades. The causes for the declines are under investigation; with watershed alterations, harvest mortality, and passage impediments known to be negative influences in most regions. It is reasonable to expect that reductions in water and habitat quality at spawning and nursery habitats could reduce the adaptive advantage of these migrations and chronically impact population recruitment.
Interest in the status of diadromous fish has fortunately increased recently among constituents and government agencies. The majority of restoration efforts have focused on migratory impediments with less attention on water and habitat quality. The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) developed a quality assurance program plan (QAPP) for water quality measurements during diadromous fish monitoring to provide standardized sampling protocols in order to improve the traceability and reliability of water quality data. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are provided for routine measurements and multi-project applications for water temperature and chemistry loggers and for river herring and rainbow smelt habitat assessments. The habitat assessment data will also provide guidance for diadromous fish restoration efforts. The QAPP was designed to coordinate sampling efforts to produce data that is acceptable and contributes to Waterbody Assessments (Clean Water Act , Section 305 (b)) and aquatic resource protection and restoration efforts under CWA Section 303 (d) conducted by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP).
Outside of minor updates and improvements, the primary changes made in this QAPP version (2.0) from the first version published in 2010 are the addition of a new SOP on fish kill investigations, protocols for sampling with the YSI 556 water chemistry instrument in SOP 2.0, and refinements to SOP 4.0 on river herring spawning and nursery habitat assessment.

In this paper, habitat diversity was studied for Mamak district, which is one of the extremely active districts of Ankara in terms of a constantly growing urbanization rate. Within the scope of the research, the habitat types of the studied area were determined and mapped in accordance with EUNIS Habitat Classification by using several GIS data (CORINE Land Cover data, forest stand maps, hydrology data, land presence data, open street map data, satellite images), and many field surveys were also conducted. In the study, a total of 43 habitat types were identified. While 29 of those habitats were determined at level 3, 14 of them were at level 4. Besides, it was determined whether those 43 habitats were on the EU Habitat Directive Annex 1 and/or Bern Convention Decision No 4 lists. This research presents the importance of determination of habitat type studies for cities. Besides, it is emphasized in the paper that the necessity of having such studies should become widespread across the country.

The Texas coast is characterized by an extensive array of shallow turbid embayments containing expansive oyster habitats and is home to a large Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) fishery. Mapping habitats in shallow (1–10 m), turbid environments is challenging, since direct visual access to the habitats limited. To quantify the extent of habitats, the integration of remote sensing and GIS technologies is used. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department coupled two acoustic technologies (sidescan sonar and echosounder) to map habitats within Copano Bay, a 181-km 2 shallow water embayment along the mid-Texas coast. Data were collected during 17 days from September 2013 to February 2014 and resulted in 159 km 2 of sidescan imagery and 375 km of single beam echosounder data. Individual echosounder transmissions were segmented and processed in ArcGIS 10.1 using the ''Unsupervised Classification'' tool. Using the classified echosounder data to identify objects located within the sidescan imagery allows for interpolation of habitat using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Habitat Digitizer ArcGIS Extension. A total of 25.9 km 2 of oyster habitat, 11.6 km 2 of shell, 26.4 km 2 of sand, and 95.1 km 2 of mud were digitized. The resulting habitat map had an overall accuracy of 86% from ground truthing accuracy assessments. This article provides methods for combining sidescan and echosounder acoustic technologies to accurately map habitats in shallow Texas estuaries.

Oriental beech makes its best spread and physical development on slopes of hills extending paralel to Black Sea shoreline in Turkey. Pure and mixed Fagus orientalis Lipsky. forests are particularly located northern slopes. Study area covers slopes facing to Black Sea within coastal areas of the settlements of Güzelcehisar, Mugada and Kızılkum, Bartın Province. The route formed by these settlements represents the part of Northwest Euxine Broadleaved forests of European-Siberian Region. The study area, at the same time, is located in the 'Eu-Euxine' part that is the most humid belt close to seaside. Euxine Beech forests intensely take part in this area and spread to the sea. This study was carried out in two stages. Initially abiotic and biotic components of study area were defined and data belong to them were collected and stored in a GIS geodatabase. Then, with help of the most recent satellite images and contemporary land use map, abiotic and biotic components of Beech dominated biotopes and land use properties evaluated together. In this way, spread of biotopes dominated by Fagus orientalis in and around Güzelcehisar, Mugada ve Kızılkum, habitat characteristics and structural changes due to land uses were determined. According to the result of study, the most intense spread of Beech communities takes place around hilly areas of Güzelcehisar where Yemişliçay formation consisting of sandstone, sheyl and limestone exists. Beech communities disappear in low elevated areas around Mugada and Kızılkum. It was determined that the most effective factors on spread of species are elevation, aspects and geologic characteristic of habitats. It was also determined that Fagus orientalis often forms mixed forests with Carpinus betulus, Castanea sativa and Quercus petraea ssp. iberica. And also, with field works it was determined that Beech biotopes were adversely affected by man based factors such as grazing, deforestation for agricultural use, road networks and rural settlements. Definition of Beech forests which take place in habitat classification of EU and contribute to biodiversity will be a preliminary assessment for protection and sustainable use of Euxine beech forests located in coastal areas of the Province of Bartın.

The EUNIS habitat classification system was designed to cover all European habitats and substantial efforts have been made to contain information on marine benthic habitats from different regions, such as the Mediterranean sea, thereby advancing the system's exhaustivity in terms of its geographical coverage of European seas (Davies et al., 2004). The importance of a univocal habitat classification system is confirmed by the fact that numerous EU initiatives aimed at marine mapping, assessment and reporting are ...

The EUNIS (European Union Nature Information System) habitat classification system aims to provide a common European reference set of habitat types within a hierarchical classification, and to cover all terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats of Europe. The classification facilitates reporting of habitat data in a comparable manner, for use in nature conservation (eg inventories, monitoring and assessments), habitat mapping and environmental management. For the marine environment the importance of a univocal ...