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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Fabrice StephensonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
© 2025 The Author(s). Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Representativity within marine protection and planning refers to the principle of ensuring that the full range of biodiversity and ecosystems (and the species that they support) in a particular region is included in a network of marine protected areas (MPA). The New Zealand Seafloor Community Classification (NZSCC), which was developed to support MPA planning and reporting at a national scale, depicts compositional turnover of 1716 taxa (demersal fish, reef fish, benthic invertebrates and macroalgae) classified in 75 groups representing seafloor communities. Here, we use the NZSCC to evaluate representativity of benthic communities within current spatial management areas across New Zealand's marine environment based on the extent of each group within spatial management areas, estimates of within- and between-group similarities and taxonomic richness. Results suggest that while offshore, deep-water communities in general are well represented within current spatial management areas (notably those communities predicted to occur below fishable depths), 46 of the 75 groups, predominantly coastal and continental shelf groups, were inadequately represented. The use of within- and between-group similarities is a significant improvement on assessments that only look at extent protected because they allow the identification of those areas that are the most representative of each group but also consideration of which groups are most dissimilar (unique) to all other groups already protected.
Author(s): Tablada J, Geange S, Stephenson F
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
Year: 2025
Volume: 35
Issue: 11
Online publication date: 10/11/2025
Acceptance date: 03/10/2025
Date deposited: 27/11/2025
ISSN (print): 1052-7613
ISSN (electronic): 1099-0755
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.70247
DOI: 10.1002/aqc.70247
Data Access Statement: Spatial management area layers used in this research are publicly available in the Department of Conservation Marine Data Portal https:// doc-marine-data-deptconservation.hub.arcgis.com/ and the Ministry for Primary Industries Open Geospatial Data Portal https://data-mpi. opendata.arcgis.com/. Data layers derived from the New Zealand Community Classification may be shared upon reasonable request but are not publicly available due to being currently used for other studies to be submitted for publication soon. All R code used in this research is available in a GitHub repository: https://github.com/docgovtnz/nzscc -evaluation
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