This archive contains information for *M1.4 Shellfish beds and reefs*, a ecosystem functional group (EFG, level 3) of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (https://global-ecosystems.org/).

General notes on maps:
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The maps show areas of the world containing major or minor occurrences of *M1.4 Shellfish beds and reefs*. Minor occurrences are areas where an EFG is scattered in patches within matrices of others or where they occur in substantial areas but only within a segment of a larger region.

The maps were designed to be indicative of global distribution patterns and are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. Given bounds of resolution and accuracy of source data, the maps should be used to query which EFG are likely to occur within areas, rather than which occur at particular point locations.

Methods for this map:
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Major and minor occurrences of shellfish beds and reefs were identified by overlaying a global map of oyster reefs (Beck et al. 2011) on marine ecoregions (Spalding et al. 2008), and then clipping to the extent of the marine ‘shelf’ base layer as mapped by Harris et al. (2014b). Occurrences were converted to 30 arc second spatial resolution.

For online visualization and navigation:
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https://global-ecosystems.org/explore/groups/M1.4

Citation:
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David A. Keith, José R. Ferrer-Paris, Emily Nicholson and Richard T. Kingsford (eds.) (2020) The IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology 2.0: Descriptive profiles for biomes and ecosystem functional groups. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. ISBN: 978-2-8317-2077-7. DOI:10.2305/IUCN.CH.2020.13.en

Data set citation:
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Keith, David A., Ferrer-Paris, Jose R., Nicholson, Emily, ..., Kingsford, Richard T. (2020). Indicative distribution maps for Ecological Functional Groups - Level 3 of IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3546513

Content of the archive:
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M1_4_Shellfish_beds_and_reefs.xml      Profile text for the funcional group (XML format)
M1.4.web.orig_v1.0.tif      Indicative map (raster layer, GeoTIFF format)
M1.4.web.orig_v1.0.json      Indicative map (vector layer, GeoJSON format)
