Essential Fish Habitats Ecological Value Maps

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The ecological value of marine areas within the MMO South Inshore and Offshore Marine Plan Areas was identified based on the frequency of occurrence of Essential Fish Habitats (EFH) modelled in the project MMO1044.� The EFH taken into account were for the following 10 fish species: plaice (adult foraging grounds, nursery and spawning grounds), sole (nursery and spawning grounds), lemon sole (nursery and spawning grounds), dab (nursery and spawning grounds), red gurnard (nursery and spawning grounds), common dragonet (nursery and spawning grounds), solenette (nursery and spawning grounds), thickback sole (nursery grounds), thornback ray (nursery grounds), herring (spawning grounds).� Only the most important EFH for each species were considered, by using the information obtained from the EFH spatial outputs and associated confidence maps: - Adult foraging grounds were identified from the outputs obtained from species habitat models (M1), as those habitats where adult occurrence is predicted (alone or together with juveniles) with the highest relative confidence level (highest confidence class associated to adult foraging habitat predictions, as identified in the confidence maps). - Nursery grounds were identified from the outputs obtained from models on the probability of occurrence of juveniles of the species (M2), as those habitats where juveniles occurrence is predicted with a probability 50% and with the highest relative confidence level (highest confidence class associated to nursery habitat predictions, as identified in the confidence maps). - Spawning grounds were identified from the outputs obtained from models on the probability of occurrence of eggs (plaice) or larvae (herring) of the species (M2), as those habitats where eggs/larvae occurrence is predicted with a probability 50% and with the highest relative confidence level (highest confidence class associated to spawning habitat predictions, as identified in the confidence maps). Limitations and caveats: Although spatial predictions with higher confidence have been taken into account to identify most important EFH for each species before combining them into the final index of ecological value, still some limitations are associated to these predictions due to the general moderate-low confidence (on average) associated to the EFH outputs (see details on output confidence assessment in Final Report of the project).