Tutorial: Spatial temporal framework

The spatial temporal framework of Ecospace is described in the EwE User’s Guide.

Part one: Changing temperatures

From the exercise files:

• Make sure you have copied the model and supporting files for this workshop
• Make sure you have installed the time-limited version of the framework

1. Load up the model and assess how it behaves

• Load “Anchovy Bay Spatial.ewemdb” from this link
• Run Ecopath, check basic estimates
  • Check Ecopath > Input > Model parameters, if Model year = 0 change it to Model year = 2000
  • If you’re loading time series, the Model year will be set from the time series
  • This step is necessary to match the spatial files we’ll be reading in
• Load Ecosim scenario “New Ecosim scenario”
• Run Ecosim, check results
• Load Ecospace scenario “BayOfAnchovies”
• Run Ecospace, see how the model behaves

As you can see, both Ecosim and Ecospace should run flat, as all inputs that influence spatial distribution have been disabled:

• Fishing effort constant for all fleets
• No species affinity for habitat and/or environmental conditions
• Fishing in all habitats
• No primary productivity pattern

This is, of course, not a fun model at this point.

2. Let’s add some minor spatial variability

Let us make a few simple tweaks to Ecospace to create some spatial variability

2.1. Limit seals to the coast

Note that the model already has an environmental driver “distance from coast”. We will use that one.

• Go to Group capacity model (in Navigation tree > Ecospace > Input > Habitat based foraging)
• For seals, enable “Use environmental responses”
• Go to Apply foraging responses (under the same navigation tree node)
• Click the cell for group “Seals” and Driver “distance from coast”

The “Define environmental response to…” form pops up

• Select function “8: Distance Seals”, and press the green arrow to apply the response
• Apply the response function to X min: 0, and X max: 200
• Press OK to close the form.

Run Ecospace to see the difference. Check both the Run Ecospace map and the graph

2.2. Limit fishing over certain habitats

In Ecospace fishery > habitat fishery, allow fleets to fish over the following habitats:

• Sealers: coastal
• Trawlers: coastal, sand
• Seiners: sand, rocky, deep
• Bait boats: sand, rocky, deep
• Shrimpers: coastal, sand

2.3. Set a temperature dependency

Let us get ready for the spatial temporal framework. Apply the following functional responses to temperature:

• Cod and mackerel: response function “5: temp cold”
• Whiting and anchovy: response function “6: temp warm”

Run Ecospace and see how the model behaves.

3 A quick summary

Next, you’ll be using the spatial temporal framework. Remember from the presentations that:

• You will need to define possible connections first. This means that you identify to Ecospace which possible time series of maps exist on your local machine to connect to
• From the available pool of connections, you will then apply connections to specific Ecospace data layers

4. Define a connection

• Go to Menu > Ecospace > Define external data connections
• For type of connection, select “A series of Ecospace ASCII files over time”
  Do you remember what this type of connection is meant for, and what its benefits and limitations are?
• Click “Create”

The form to configure the new connection opens up. In this form, make a few changes:

• For name, enter “Anchovy Bay SST”
• For description, enter “Anchovy Bay observed changes in SST”
• For variable, select “Environmental driver”

Now connect to the maps, somewhere on your local machine:

• On the line that starts with “Location”, click “Browse”
• Navigate to the folder where you placed the files for this exercise. The spatial temporal data is in the folder Exercises\Spatial temporal drivers\Anchovy Bay Temperature
• Select all the ASCII map files in this folder
• Click “Open”

The ASCII maps should now be listed in alphabetical order, and for Ecospace to know when to load a map, each map must be time stamped. You can change time stamps by hand, or via the options listed below the header “Set file times”.

Note that the spatial temporal data framework makes an educated guess about the time stamp of each file. In this case, because files are named sst_<year>-<month>.asc, the framework can pick up the year and month part.

• Once all map files are properly date stamped, close the configuration form by clicking OK.

The new connection should now be listed among the existing connections in the “Define external spatial temporal data connections” form. The connection is not applied though; it is only available to be applied at this point.

4 Apply the connection

Ok, we should be ready now. We’ve made sure that Ecospace is ready to incorporate temperature effects (at least to some extent):

• We have made sure that at least some groups use environmental drivers to derive habitat foraging capacity. In other words: at least some species are sensitive to (varying) environmental conditions
• We’ve made sure that at least some functional groups have specific tolerances to temperature.

We’re ready to make temperatures change now. Do the following:

• Open Navigation tree > Ecospace > Input > External data
• Scroll down to the section named “Environmental driver”, and in the row that reads “Temperature”, click the cell for column “Slot 1”
• In the list of available locations, select the data connection that contains time series for Anchovy Bay
• Click the green arrow to apply this connection to the layer & slot that you selected
• Click “Close”

You have now applied the connection to the map layer, and Ecospace is ready to run with this new data.

• Run the model and see what happens to your biomasses now
• Check the EwE status panel to see what the spatial temporal framework has done

We’ll go over this exercise as a group in the class to explain what happened.

Part 2: an MPA for shrimp. Continue with the model for this exercise

• Load Anchovy Bay Spatial.ewemdb
• Run Ecopath, check basic estimates
• Load Ecosim scenario “New Ecosim scenario”
• Run Ecosim, check results
• Load Ecospace scenario “BayOfAnchovies”
• Run Ecospace, see how the model behaves

2. Add an MPA to prevent trawling

• Click Menu > Ecospace > Define MPAs…
• Click Add
• Name the MPA “No shrimpers”
• Press OK

As the MPA is being created, Ecospace will close.

3. Enforce the MPA

• Click Navigation tree > Ecospace > input > Ecospace fishery > Marine Protected Areas and take note what months the MPA is active
• Click the MPA Enforcement node, and apply the MPA only to fleet 5, “Shrimpers”.

4. Give the MPA a map

• Click Navigation tree > Ecospace > input > Maps
• At the right-hand layers panel, click the map layer for your brand new MPA. You can now change the map cells for this MPA (and there are no cells allocated for now)
• Allocate a 3×3 cell cluster in an area where shrimp is in trouble. Where would you place the MPA? Re-run Ecospace to explore this!
• Run Ecospace, and check the Fishing Effort maps to see how Shrimpers are affected. Did you see some effect? Is shrimp biomass locally recovering somewhat? If not, try to place the MPA in a slightly different location and run again. Run until you see some results.

5 Using the framework step 1: prepare the maps

For our hypothetical scenario we will assume that the MPA at first (year 2000) was not present. The MPA was established in May 2005, and doubled in size in September 2012. We’ll use the Ecospace maps interface to make the maps.

• To create the May 2005 map, double-click the MPA layer name in the right-hand layers panel. This should bring you to the “Edit layer” interface for the MPA layer. If you are seeing the “Description and appearance” tab, just switch over to “Data”
• In the Data tab, click Export > To asci grid…
• Browse to the course material, and create a new folder for the MPA spatial temporal data
• Save the map as “mpa_noshrimpers_2005-05.asc”

To create the September 2012 map, do the following:

• Close the edit layer interface
• Add 9 more cells to the MPA map
• Save the map data as a new ASCII map file, in the same folder as “mpa_noshrimpers_2005-05.asc”, and call the new file “mpa_noshrimpers_2012-09.asc”

Now, to make Ecospace represent the start-up situation where there are no limitations to shrimpers, simply erase all cells allocated to the MPA. Save Ecospace.

6 Using the framework step 2: make, apply and run the connection

Following the steps of tutorial 1, can you now generate and apply a connection for the MPA data?

Hints:

• Use the same type of connection as in tutorial 1, as we’re dealing with ASCII map files especially created for Ecospace
• Apply to connection to the correct Ecospace layer!

• Run Ecospace and see if the MPA has expected effects

Two questions for you to consider:

• Why are only two MPA maps needed to represent these changes?
• Is that logical to you?