Spatial structuring of fish community in association with environmental variables in the coastal Gulf of Maine

Abstract

The coastal Gulf of Maine provides critical habitats for many commercially important fish species. In this study, using data collected from an inshore bottom trawl survey, we evaluated seasonal and annual variations in the spatial distribution of the fish community in the coastal Gulf of Maine. We identified key environmental drivers important in structuring the fish community, including longitudinal strata, distance offshore, depth, bottom temperature, bottom salinity and substrate type. This study suggests linear relationships between the fish abundances and the environmental variables. This linear relationship is more obvious if integrating fish species as a whole group than clustering them into subgroups. However, as large temporal variability exists for some species subgroups in their spatial structure, environmental variables can still be difficult to predict the spatial distributions of species groups. Despite these current limitations, the information derived in this study contributes to critical information for developing spatially-explicit fisheries management strategies such as area closure in the coastal Gulf of Maine.