I am exploring the possibility of using habitat suitability models such as Casimir or Mesohabsim to analyze impacts of climate and land-use change on macroinvertebrate species distribution. While I see plenty of literature involving fish associated impacts using these models, relatively fewer studies have focussed on macroinvertebrates. In our case, we will be collecting data of physical habitat such as depth, velocity which we will use in either 1D or 2D hydraulic model (to calibrate/validate). Later on, these information would be incorporated into habitat suitability models. My question is regarding the feasibility of using Casimir/Mesohabsim for our purposes.
FYI, I am aware that there are also other approaches to model species distribution using tools such as Maxent or Biomod but they have been mostly successful at the Macroscale. Here we would be looking at the microscale (a few kms) and so it seems prudent to use the preference curve/fuzzy logic-based approach in our modeling chain.
I am looking forward to your expert opinion.
Hi Somsubhra,
I can't tell about Mesohabsim but for Casimir it is possible to use it for macroinvertebrates. Note however that these software are not exactly modelling species (taxa to be precise) distribution but habitat suitability, which is used as a proxy of the distribution of taxa. By accepting this assumption, yes, you can use Casimir or any other software but, apart from the physical habitat data (depth, velocity, substrate) for a given study area, you need to have information on the habitat preferences for depth, velocity and substrate for the benthic macroinvertebrates and this may be a difficult task since I don't think you will find generic macroinvertebrate habitat suitability curves that can be applied in a wide geographical scale (across countries). Once you have found/collected suitable (country-specific) data on the habitat preferences of benthic macroinvertebrates, you input this information to Casimir (or any other software) together with topographical data for a given river reach and data for calibration-validation and you can get specific results on the habitat suitability for the given study area in various water discharges.
Yet again, I can't figure out how land-use changes (or their impact on the river water) can be incorporated in hydraulic habitat models, either for fish or macroinvertebrates. Climate change could result in increased water temperatures and this indeed can be modelled but you will further need temperature-preference data for the macroinvertebrates (apart from flow velocity, water depth and substrate).
I hope I did not confuse you :) I attach two of my articles on the use of macroinvertebrates for model-based environmental flow assessments that could be of help (I have not used Casimir but the concept is pretty much the same on what this models actually do and how they do it).
Article Ecosystem-based environmental flow assessment in a Greek reg...
Article Comparing environmental flow scenarios from hydrological met...
Best regards,
Christos
Hello Somsubhra,
I am curious to read others' answers to this question, but I would suspect it would be difficult to obtain the level of topographic resolution needed to model habitat suitability for macroinvertebrates in streams (once habitat suitability curves are developed, as Christos points out). Depending on your question, you may be able to predict/large-scale changes. You might also consider collecting substrate data, as changes in substrate (e.g., increases in fines related to land use change) can lead to detectable changes in macroinvertebrate communities.
Best of luck,
Cheers,
Brian
I want to learn modelling...is there any online techniques to learn
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