Fig 1.
Study site in Moreton Bay and surrounding catchments in Queensland, Australia. Seagrass data were obtained from [42, 43], and all other data are courtesy of the Government of Queensland.
Fig 2.
Work flow diagram for model of impacts of sediment loads on seagrass habitat suitability in Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia.
Fig 3.
Data used to model habitat suitability for seagrass in Moreton Bay, Australia: (a) observed seagrass extent in 2004 [42]; (b) distance to rivermouths; (c) distance to open ocean; (d) water quality monitoring sites (dots) and map of modelled Secchi Depth for July 2004; (e) modelled upper 90th percentile of significant wave heights [46, 59]; (f) water depth [63].
Table 1.
Data sources, resolution and uncertainty.
Fig 4.
Modelled suspended sediments (tonnes) delivered to Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia.
Fig 5.
Output of predictive model of seagrass suitable habitat for Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia: (a) probability of seagrass presence in a representative year (July 2010); (b) observed and predicted seagrass extent in July 2004; (c) map of predicted seagrass presence in January 2011 (heavy flooding) vs. July 2004 (drought).
Fig 6.
Relationship between sediment loads and seagrass habitat area.
Effect of annual sediment load (Tonnes) on area of seagrass suitable habitat (Hectares) in Moreton Bay, Southeast Queensland, Australia. Points represent model estimates for each year from 2001–2013 and the line is a linear model fit of the data.
Table 2.
Results of statistical analyses of the effect of sediment loads on seagrass extent in Moreton Bay, Australia.
Fig 7.
Sensitivity analysis of the effects time-scale and threshold value on the relationship between sediment loads and seagrass habitat area.
Effect of sediment load on the extent of seagrass suitable habitat (Ha) in Moreton Bay, Southeast Queensland, Australia. Points represent model estimates for each year from 2001–2013 and lines are linear model fits of the data. a) Data aggregated over annual time-scales; b) Data aggregated over monthly time-scales. Coloured lines within plots indicate results obtained using four different threshold cut-off values. The threshold value is used to assign seagrass presence vs. absence from predicted probability of occurrence based on the habitat distribution model.