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To investigate how changing grid size can alter model predictions of the distribution of mesophotic taxa and how it affects different modelling methods.

Ningaloo Marine Park, Western Australia.

Benthic mesophotic taxa: corals, macroalgae and sponges.

We determined the distributions of the major benthic taxonomic groups: corals, macroalgae and sponges, using a number of modelling techniques and an ensemble using the ‘sdm’ R package. A range of grid sizes were used (10, 50, 100 and 250 m) to identify how model predictions were altered. Models were evaluated using the area under the curve of a receiver operator characteristic plot (AUC) and the true skill statistic (TSS) using a spatially independent dataset.

Grid size had a large effect on model performance across the taxonomic groups. Model outputs were compared to null surfaces and 88.8% of models …