Abstract
Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) has widely been applied to the evaluation of habitat suitability of target species. Despite the differences in modelling approaches, no study has clarified the effects of data types and categorization methods of habitat variables on the habitat evaluation. In this paper, we assessed the effects on the habitat preference curves and model accuracy in the HSI-based habitat evaluation for Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes). As a result, all the preference curves from the different types of data showed the same trend of preference to a deeper water depth, a lower current velocity, a larger lateral cover ratio and a smaller percent vegetation coverage, in which differences were found among the categorization methods. It is also found that the data types and categorization methods have different effects on the habitat modelling, which appeared differently by performance measures used. This case study of Japanese medaka illustrates the importance and effectiveness of a modelling approach with consideration to the ecological characteristics of target species.
