Journal article
Ecological niches of three abundant Caulerpa species in Port Phillip Bay, southeast Australia
PF Crockett, MJ Keough
Aquatic Botany | Published : 2014
Abstract
Caulerpa (J.V. Lamouroux) forms important habitat in temperate and tropical ecosystems. The temperate coastal waters of southern Australia have high Caulerpa diversity and abundance, yet little information is available on ecological differences between related species. The distribution of Caulerpa species in Port Phillip Bay was documented along 151 100. m long towed video transects. Data on physical variables and distributions of co-occuring species was compiled from historic and contemporary sources. The distributions three Caulerpa species were investigated using boosted regression tree models. The cross-validated boosted regression tree models achieved deviance explained of 0.35-0.54 and..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We thank three anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and thoughtful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. Fieldwork conducted for the project was funded by a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment. Peter Crockett was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and the David H. Ashton scholarship. Jan Carey gave valuable input to the project and assistance with BRT models was provided by Yung en Chee. The authors are grateful for data provided by Environment Protection Authority Victoria, Melbourne Water Corporation and Port of Melbourne Corporation. Many people provided assistance in the field, in particular Paul Carnell and Rami Saaristo. Towed video equipment was kindly loaned by CEE Consultants P/L.