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Shy Species Preferred Seahorse Habitats

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Terms of Reference Background Seahorses are an iconic, shy species that have become adapted to live in a variety of habitats. They have the ability to camouflage and a prehensile tail that can only be forcibly unlocked in the most extremes of weather. They have the ability to grow and reabsorb spiny appendages on their body, depending on the habitat they live in. The seahorse male is the only male animal in the world to have a true, full pregnancy. There are two species of Seahorse in the British Isles, the spiny seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) and the short snouted seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus); both widely distributed and both specialising in differing habitats due to subtle differences in the shape of the snout and body and their dietary needs, although they can also be occasionally found in the same habitat together (Garrick-Maidment 2004). Seahorses are typically found in pairs, once they have migrated back into shallow waters from their deeper, winter refuge. They are normally observed in shallower water of 2 meter (m) as the sea temperature warms up to 9 ºC or more (Garrick-Maidment, 2013), they then form …show more content…

To present the data and undertake statistical analysis to determine and produce maps of ‘preferred seahorse habitat’. For example, percentage of sightings per habitats in the case of non quantitative data, mainly for this seahorses sighting database (presence and absence). Since the analysis of presence- only data is a problem in determining the species distribution and accurately determining population sizes, more exploratory analysis and investigation of selected sites will be undertaken to see why some of the preferred habitats have no records of sightings (lack of survey, under-reporting or poor environmental condition, for example). Hence, logistic regression for presence and absence is one option while Generalised linear model (GLM) prediction using regression analysis is another alternative for continuous data (such as sightings

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