Using a Bayesian network to understand the importance of coastal storms and undeveloped landscapes for the creation and maintenance of early successional habitat
Fig 9
(a) Area of piping plover nesting habitat, according to predictions by the Plover Habitat Bayesian network, that was created immediately after Hurricane Sandy (i.e., newly created habitat between the pre- and post-Sandy periods). Bars showing habitat area are divided based on the geomorphic settings (defined in [34]) that were present after Hurricane Sandy according to October/November 2012 aerial photography and lidar. Because habitat continued to increase on Long Beach Island (LBI) and Pullen Island between the post- and ca. 2 years post-Sandy periods, we also include the amount and proportions of habitat created during that second time period for those sites (labeled with ‘12–14’ to denote the second period of habitat gain). Geomorphic settings for ‘12–14’ bars reflect settings available in the ca. post-Sandy period (June 2014). We combined the ‘beach’ and ‘backshore’ settings here for display purposes. Colors comprising bars in (a) are defined by colors of setting names in (b), and sites are listed from most to least developed.