Steves et al : Settlement and nursery habitats for demersal fishes 



177 



is a proxy for the environmental variable to which it 

 is highly correlated. 



Examination of species-environment biplots revealed 

 relationships between environmental variables and 

 species distributions. The species-environment biplot 

 for the first two axes represents the majority of the 

 species-environment relationships that restilted from 

 the partial CCA (Fig. 9C). The importance of depth 

 and temperature to these two canonical axes (see 

 Table 7) indicates that temperature and depth 

 are the two most important determinants of the spe- 

 cies data. Inner-shelf species such as Stenotomus 



chrysops, Paralichthys oblongus, Centropristis stri- 

 ata, and Etropus microstomus are located near the 

 upper right-hand quadrant of the ordination (posi- 

 tive values for both of the first CCA axes). Outer- 

 shelf species, such as the rockfishes, Sebastes spp., 

 and Helicolenus dactylopterus and the snake and 

 cusk eels (Ophichthus cruentifer and L. profunda- 

 rum) are found in the lower right-hand quadrant 

 (positive CCA 1 and negative CCA 2). Species from 

 the middle shelf, particularly Pleuronectes ferrugin- 

 eus and Liparis inquilinus, are located near the 

 origin of the ordination diagram. 



