Due to highly complex social structures and habitat separation between populations of sperm whales, investigations on distribution of sperm whales is integral to management and conservation of the species. Pace and colleagues used a maximum entropy modeling technique (MaxEnt) to estimate the distribution of sperm whales over a raster layer of the study area. This modeling technique used presence and absence data of sperm whales in the Tyrrhenian Sea in Italy obtained from acoustic monitoring over 9 year time period spanning from 2007 to 2015.
Environmental variables were obtained from GIS raster layers, and spatial prediction maps were generated using ArcGIS. MaxEnt outputs were mapped which enabled the visualization of habitat suitability ranging from 0 to 1, unsuitable habitat to very suitable habitat.
This study showed the use of GIS to visualize habitat suitability based on models informed from acoustically derived presence/absence data of sperm whales. This type of technique could be used to inform management reform and to specifically target areas of highest risk.
Pace DS, Arcangeli A, Mussi B, et al (2018) Habitat suitability modeling in different sperm whale social groups: Sperm Whale Habitat Suitability Modeling. Jour Wild Mgmt 82:1062–1073. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.21453
