Linking oceanic variability, euphausiid hotspot persistence, and marine predator distribution along Canada's west coast.

ABSTRACT: Understanding patterns of habitat use across trophic levels and the physical drivers of multispecies aggregations is essential to inform ecosystem-based management. To achieve this, we quantified the spatial distribution and co-occurrence of hotspots (defined using the Getis-Ord statistic) for euphausiids and nine of their commercially important fish and whale predators on the west coast of Canada during summer. We first developed fine-scale spatiotemporal distribution models of euphausiids and Pacific hake using high-resolution acoustic data from coast-wide surveys conducted between 2007 and 2018. We found that the spatiotemporal distribution of hotspots of euphausiids and hake was variable between years with low direct overlap (apart from 2017). The summer of 2015, during the 2014-2016 m

SUBMITTER: Evans R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12796558 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature