AquaMaps are computer-generated predictions of natural occurrence of marine species, based on the environmental tolerance of a given species with respect to depth, salinity, temperature, primary productivity, and its association with sea ice or coastal areas. These 'environmental envelopes' are matched against an authority file which contains respective information for the Oceans of the World. Independent knowledge such as distribution by FAO areas or bounding boxes are used to avoid mapping species in areas that contain suitable habitat, but are not occupied by the species.
This dataset shows the areas of biological significance (ABS) on Pohnpei. The original dataset was created by The Nature Conservancy. A subset to show only Pohnpei was created by the Island Research & Education Initiative (iREi). These data are intended to capture those areas that represent the wide range of biodiversity features in the marine and terrestial areas of FSM. They are used to guide conservation planning and projects in FSM, and ultimately to help establish conservation areas. Polygons capturing expert knowledge from FSM Blueprint project.