A Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Texas Bays and Marine Species

Abstract

Temporal and spatial analysis of marine species distributions within the Gulf of Mexico is important in recognizing trends as to how their population dynamics change. Recognizing these trends can help fisheries and bay managers take precautionary action to better manage species important to a system and prevent biodiversity loss. This paper explores (1) how the abundance of fish and invertebrate species across the 8 major Texas bays are changing over time and space; (2) the spatial variability between the Upper and Lower Laguna Madre bay systems depicted by Self-Organizing Map tools (SOM). Species observation data collected by TPWD for 7 bays in the Gulf of Mexico over 35 years (between 1982-2016) across three sampling methods (gillnet, bag seine, and bay trawl) for over 1200 species of fish and invertebrates were analyzed in the R Studio Programming environment. Linear regression and related analysis were performed on the fish and invertebrate species data to determine their changes across bays (space) and over time. SOMs were created to determine differences in environmental variables between the Upper and Lower Laguna Madre. The findings for this study will allow for updated species distribution trends to be recognized, and allow for the exploration of the use of SOM tools in marine species distribution analyses.