Forage fishes are a critical food web link in marine ecosystems, aggregating in a hierarchical patch structure over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Existing survey and analysis methods are often imperfect for studying forage fishes at scales appropriate to foraging predators, making it difficult to quantify predator–prey interactions. In this study, Bayesian joint species distribution models were applied to bottom trawl survey data to assess species- and community-level forage fish distribution patterns across the US Northeast Continental Shelf (NES) ecosystem. More information on this study can be found here.
