| Title | Habitat characterization of Boltenia ovifera and Modiolus in the Head Harbour/West Isles/Passages ecologically and biologically significant areas, New Brunswick, Canada |
| Download | Download (whole publication) |
| |
| Licence | Please note the adoption of the Open Government Licence - Canada
supersedes any previous licences. |
| Author | Mireault, C A; Lawton, P; Devillers, R |
| Source | Program and abstracts: 2017 GeoHab Conference, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada; by Todd, B J ; Brown, C J; Lacharité, M; Gazzola, V; McCormack, E; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8295, 2017 p. 85, https://doi.org/10.4095/305898  Open Access |
| Links | GeoHab 2017
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| Year | 2017 |
| Publisher | Natural Resources Canada |
| Meeting | 2017 GeoHab: Marine Geological and Biological Habitat Mapping; Dartmouth, NS; CA; May 1-4, 2017 |
| Document | open file |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | on-line; digital |
| Related | This publication is contained in Program and abstracts: 2017
GeoHab Conference, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | New Brunswick |
| NTS | 21B/09; 21B/10; 21B/11; 21B/14; 21B/15; 21B/16; 21G/01; 21G/02; 21G/03 |
| Area | Bay of Fundy; Fundy Isles |
| Lat/Long WENS | -67.5000 -66.0000 45.2500 44.5000 |
| Subjects | marine geology; surficial geology/geomorphology; environmental geology; geophysics; mapping techniques; oceanography; marine environments; coastal studies; conservation; marine organisms; marine
ecology; resource management; biological communities; environmental studies; ecosystems; benthos; photography; bathymetry; geophysical interpretations; acoustic surveys, marine; sonar surveys; side-scan sonar; modelling; seafloor topography;
planning; Biology |
| Program | Offshore Geoscience |
| Released | 2017 09 26 |
| Abstract | The Fundy Isles region of the Lower Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, Canada, is a coastal area with a high benthic biodiversity. This has prompted the designation by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Canada (DFO) of certain areas of this region as DFO Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSA). Boltenia ovifera and Modiolus are two benthic species that have been identified as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME) indicator species that
aid to the uniqueness of benthic habitats, but are vulnerable to disturbance. Those species have thus been considered a key starting point for the assessment of marine species distributions within the EBSA region.
Benthic image and video data
collected at thirty stations during the summer of 2016 were analyzed for the presence and abundance of B. ovifera and M. modiolus. Target survey strata were derived using depth and slope characteristics from available multibeam data. Near-seabed
drift transects were then carried out using a surface-deployed camera system. Twenty-five minute videos were analyzed in real time in lab using Transana 3.0 video analysis software. Images were extracted from the videos using FFMPEG software at 30
second intervals and analyzed using PhotoQuad 2.4. Biological data and a 1m resolution multibeam dataset of the region were used in General Additive Models (GAM) to produce predictive distribution models of B. ovifera and M. modiolus.
Preliminary
results of these models show that seafloor slope and depth (p = < 0.001, n=809) are variables explaining the distribution of B. ovifera, findings that are consistent with previous studies. However, these models performed poorly in terms of the
overall model output for both the image (r2 = 16.71%) and the video analysis (r2 = 9.56%). These new surveys have added significantly to our knowledge of the area- and depth-related distribution of B. ovifera. Finding significant aggregations of this
species at depths to 75m on hard substrates suggests that prior assessments on the presence of sensitive benthic habitat in this coastal region underestimated the actual extent.
Unfortunately, there were only a limited number of observations for
M. modiolus due to difficulties identifying them in the video and image data. This has precluded developing robust GAM models for M. modiolus at this time. The seabed camera was also equipped during the 2016 seabed surveys with a Nikon digital still
camera that obtained higher-resolution imagery. Those additional images will be analyzed to help increase M. modiolus observations. Further data analysis will be conducted to refine the GAM species distribution models and test other modelling
techniques, such as Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) and Boosted Regression Tree (BRT). These models will hopefully provide insight on the impacts of the environmental factors that influence the distribution of B. ovifera and M. modiolus within the EBSA
region and provide geospatial predictions of high quality habitat for consideration of conservation planning approaches. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
The sixteenth annual GeoHab Conference was held this year (2017) at the Waterfront Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia,
Canada. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 305898 |
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