Ecosystem Based Management Conference Session: Development of Habitat Suitability Models for Ecosystem Based Fisheries management in the Chesapeake Bay

Modeling efforts within the Chesapeake Bay have failed to effectively link water quality
and habitat degradation or restoration to changes in living resource populations. Habitat
suitability models represent a principal means to develop such associations but have not
seen extensive development or application within the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. A 1.5
day workshop, Co-chaired by Dr.s David Secor and Denise Breitburg (Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center), was held in Baltimore as part of the March 2009
Chesapeake Bay Research Consortium’s Ecosystem Based Management Conference.
Experts presented state-of-the-art habitat suitability models that ranged from statistical
approaches that permit water quality to be translated into living resource distribution
maps to dynamic models that track individual oysters and fish as they respond to
conditions that vary continuously.