StFX's Marine Ecology Lab has just published a study documenting the biogeography of wave-exposed intertidal habitats spanning the open Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. This effort was led by Dr. Ricardo Scrosati and represented a collaboration with MSc students Matthew Freeman and Willy Petzold and PhD student Julius Ellrich.
The work involved biological surveys done at various coastal locations repeated over four consecutive years. Dr. Scrosati says this approach allowed the research team to identify consistent latitudinal patterns of variation as well as interannual differences caused by environmental changes.
"Overall, our coast is characterized by a diverse and abundant array of species at southern locations, while northern locations exhibit fewer species that are typically less abundant," he says.
"This ecological distinction is mostly determined by changes in winter drift ice, thermal properties of the coastal ocean and air, and planktonic food supply seen from north to south along this coast."
Besides its value to understand current natural variation, Dr. Scrosati says the extensive biological database generated by their surveys will be invaluable as a baseline to assess ecological change decades into the future as anthropogenic influences unfold. "Moreover, our results can be used at present time to inform decision makers on the establishment of marine protected areas to mitigate the impact of such influences."
This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) through successive Discovery Grants to Dr. Scrosati
The article can be freely accessed from Frontiers in Marine Science through this webpage.
