Spatial distribution of benthic flora and fauna of coastal placentia bay, an ecologically and biologically significant area of the island of newfoundland, atlantic Canada

Coastal habitats have the potential to be biodiversity hotspots that provide important ecosystem services, but also hotspots for human development and exploitation. Continued use of coastal ecosystem services requires establishing baselines that capture the present state of the benthos. This study employs habitat mapping to establish a baseline describing the spatial distribution of benthic organisms along the western coast of Placentia Bay, an Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area (EBSA) in Newfoundland, Canada. The influence of seafloor characteristics on the distribution of four dominant epifaunal assemblages and two macrophyte species were modelled using two machine learning techniques: the well-established Random Forest and the newer Light Gradient Boosting Machine. When investigating model performance, the inclusion of fine-scale (< 1 m) substrate information from the benthic videos was found to consistently improve model accuracy. Predictive maps developed here suggest that the majority of the surveyed areas consisted of a species-rich epifaunal assemblage dominated by ophiuroids, porifera, and hydrozoans, as well as prominent coverage by Agarum clathratum and non-geniculate crustose coralline algae. These maps establish a baseline that enables future monitoring of Placentia Bay's coastal ecosystem, helping to conserve the biodiversity and ecosystem services this area provides.