Occasional species are vulnerable to external threats such as environmental changes and human activities and have important values in biodiversity conservation. However, due to their limited availability of data and associated difficulties in statistical analysis, there are few studies on the spatial distribution and their relationships with environmental factors. In this study, based on the fishery resource surveys in the Haizhou Bay conducted from 2013 to 2019, we analyzed the relationships between the distribution and environmental factors for three occasional species, Coilia mystus, Odontamblyopus rubicundus and Erisphex pottii, using generalized additive model (GAM) and random forest (RF) model. The models were compared according to their goodness of fit and the predictive performances were evaluated using cross-validation. The results showed that depth was the most significant factor affecting the distribution of C. mystus and O. rubicundus in spring and autumn, the sea bottom temperature was the most important environmental factor influencing the distribution of E. pottii in autumn. The distribution model of C. mystus had the highest deviance explanation, followed by O. rubicundus, and E. pottii had the lowest deviance explanation. The deviance explanation by the distribution models of C. mystus, O. rubicundus and E. pottii were all lower in spring than in autumn. The cross-validation showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of the three species ranged from 0.70 to 0.85, and only the AUC of C. mystus reached 0.9 in autumn; meanwhile, the AUC of the GAM prediction results were larger than those of the RF model, indicating that the prediction performance of the GAM was better than that of the RF model for the occasional species. This study would provide a reference for the selection of models for future studies of occasional species, and have guiding significance for the conservation of the occasional species.
| 科 Family | 属数 Number of genus | 种数 Number of species | 占总种数比例 Percentage of total species (%) | 属 Genus | 种数 Number of species | 占总种数比例 Percentage of total species (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 鹅膏菌科Amanitaceae | 2 | 11 | 5.26 | 鹅膏菌属 Amanita | 10 | 4.78 |
| 小菇科 Mycenaceae | 2 | 12 | 5.74 | 丝盖伞属 Inocybe | 5 | 2.39 |
| 多孔菌科 Polyporaceae | 8 | 14 | 6.70 | 蜡蘑属 Laccaria | 5 | 2.39 |
| 红菇科 Russulaceae | 3 | 23 | 11.00 | 小皮伞属 Marasmius | 6 | 2.87 |
| 小菇属 Mycena | 11 | 5.26 | ||||
| 光柄菇属 Pluteus | 5 | 2.39 | ||||
| 红菇属 Russula | 17 | 8.13 | ||||
| 栓菌属 Trametes | 5 | 2.39 |