Grab your lunch and join us on Wednesday, July 16, 2025 at 12 noon in the Hakai Node, as special guest speaker, Dr. Gabriel Reygondeau (University of Miami/University of British Columbia) discusses:
A revised and enhanced AquaMaps: AquaX
Marine biodiversity underpins ecosystem health and is critical for the provision of essential ecological services. Global efforts to mitigate biodiversity loss are underway, but require comprehensive knowledge on the distributions of individual species to be effective. However, this remains unrealistic due to the complexity of ocean ecosystems and the difficulty of sampling the marine realm. To address these challenges, and provide the knowledge base for effective conservation and management, species distribution models (SDMs) or Ecological Niche models (EN Ms) have emerged as critical tools for projecting species ranges. In the oceans, AquaMaps pioneered large-scale marine species mapping using SDM frameworks. Methodological and data advances have enabled a more modern and robust approach which enables higher resolution outputs more suited to conservation applications at all scales. Building on this previous work, here we develop a next-generation marine species habitat suitability modelling platform called AquaX, providing a suite of advances that include an ensemble of ten machine learning algorithms, enabling spatial uncertainty assessments, validation indices, and ecological niche representation at a ten-fold improved spatial resolution of 5x5km.
Furthermore, AquaX also integrates:
(i) accepted taxonomy from the World Register of Marine Species,
(ii) species-specific ecological, physiological, and biogeographical information (D3-Ocean system),
(iii) updated occurrence records validated through expert input, and
(iv) refined species range maps using expert knowledge and biogeographical divisions.
AquaX also projects species’ habitat suitability for both present and future conditions based on two time periods and three climate scenarios (RCPs/SSPs). The innovative approaches described here improve predictive accuracy at scales more relevant to marine biodiversity conservation and offer an openly accessible tool to support marine biodiversity research and conservation planning under accelerating environmental change. AquaX represents an important step forward in species distribution modeling, enabling researchers and policymakers to better understand marine biodiversity patterns and develop more effective conservation strategies.
BIO
Dr. Gabriel Reygondeau is a marine biogeographer and oceanographer whose interdisciplinary research explores the complex interplay between oceanographic processes, biodiversity, and human impacts on marine ecosystems. With a Ph.D. from the University of Montpellier and a robust international academic path—including positions at Yale University, the University of British Columbia, and currently as an Associate Professor at the University of Miami—his work spans global to regional scales. He specializes in modeling species distributions, analyzing climate-driven changes in marine biodiversity, and supporting conservation efforts through big data analytics. As the coordinator of AquaMaps and co-coordinator of FishBase, Dr. Reygondeau plays a pivotal role in developing global biodiversity databases and decision-support tools for marine spatial planning. His research, published in top-tier journals, informs global initiatives such as the IPCC and Half Earth, and aims to guide sustainable ocean governance in a changing climate.
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