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Incorporating stressor interactions into spatially explicit cumulative impact assessments

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dc.contributor.authorStockbridge, J.
dc.contributor.authorJones, A.R.
dc.contributor.authorBrown, C.J.
dc.contributor.authorDoubell, M.J.
dc.contributor.authorGillanders, B.M.
dc.date.issued2025
dc.description.abstractHuman-induced stressors are impacting the oceans and reducing the biodiversity of marine ecosystems. The many stressors affecting marine environments do not act in isolation. However, their cumulative impact is difficult to predict. Most of the available methods for quantifying cumulative impacts on marine ecosystems sum the impact of individual stressors to estimate cumulative impact. We demonstrate how experimental evidence from interacting stressors can be accounted for in cumulative impact assessments. We adapted a widely used additive model to incorporate nonadditive stressor interactions into a marine spatially explicit cumulative impact assessment for seagrasses. We combined experimental data on the impact of multiple stressors with spatial data on stressor intensity to test whether stressor interactions impact seagrasses in a case study region in South Australia. We also assessed how uncertainty about cumulative impacts changes when uncertainty in stressor interactions is included in the impact mapping. The results from an additive spatial cumulative impact assessment model were compared with results from the model incorporating interactions. Cumulative effects from the interaction model were more variable than those produced by the additive model. Five of the 15 stressor interactions that we tested produced impacts that significantly deviated from those predicted by an additive model. Areas of our study region that showed the largest discrepancies between the additive and interactive outputs were also associated with higher uncertainty. Our study demonstrates that the inclusion of stressor interactions changes the pattern and intensity of modeled spatial cumulative impact. Additive models have the potential to misrepresent cumulative impact intensity and do not provide the opportunity for targeted mitigation measures when managing the interactive effects of stressors. Appropriate inclusion of interacting stressor data may have implications for the identification of key stressors and the subsequent spatial planning and management of marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityJackson Stockbridge, Alice R. Jones, Christopher J. Brown, Mark J. Doubell, Bronwyn M. Gillanders
dc.identifier.citationEcological Applications, 2025; 35(1):e3056-1-e3056-16
dc.identifier.doi10.1002/eap.3056
dc.identifier.issn1051-0761
dc.identifier.issn1939-5582
dc.identifier.orcidJones, A.R. [0000-0002-6157-2024]
dc.identifier.orcidDoubell, M.J. [0000-0003-3272-9659]
dc.identifier.orcidGillanders, B.M. [0000-0002-7680-2240]
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/144174
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherWILEY
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT210100792
dc.rights© 2024 The Author(s). Ecological Applications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1002/eap.3056
dc.subjectanthropogenic threats
dc.subjectcumulative impacts
dc.subjectmultiple stressors
dc.subjectnonadditive
dc.subjectspatial assessments
dc.subjectstressor interactions
dc.subjectuncertainty analysis
dc.subject.meshConservation of Natural Resources
dc.subject.meshEcosystem
dc.subject.meshEnvironmental Monitoring
dc.subject.meshModels, Biological
dc.subject.meshSouth Australia
dc.subject.meshOceans and Seas
dc.titleIncorporating stressor interactions into spatially explicit cumulative impact assessments
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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