Research Document - 2016/006

Mapping Biodiversity on the Scotian Shelf and in the Bay of Fundy

By C.A. Ward-Paige and A. Bundy

Abstract

The purpose of this report is to provide Science advice on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) criteria (vii); that is, to identify areas of high biological diversity for the identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) in Canada’s Scotian Shelf marine bioregion (i.e., Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy). Biological diversity (biodiversity) is defined by the CBD to mean “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems”.

Here, three species based biodiversity indices were estimated from the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Research Vessel (RV) survey data: species richness, the exponential of Shannon-Wiener Index (ESW) and Heip’s Evenness Index. The main conclusions are that:

• Areas with high values of ESW and Heip’s Evenness Index often occur in the same or similar locations.
• Areas of high species richness usually occur in different areas from high values of ESW and Heip’s Evenness Index.
• The size and location of the hotspots for these biodiversity indicators change over time.
• There is no consistent relationship between any of these indicators and areas of high abundance of key species; there does appear to be a strong relationship between fish species richness and ecosystem functioning, as represented by fish biomass, and there is some evidence of a relationship between invertebrate diversity and ecosystem functioning, which needs to be further explored.
• The Bay of Fundy was consistently identified as an area with high biodiversity, across indices and across time.

For the current purposes of EBSA identification, and as a first step only, it is recommended that areas consistently high in biodiversity through time, regardless of time period or index used, should be considered essential ecosystem features that would provide integrity and resilience to the ecosystem in the face of disturbance and change and likely provide high functional value. This initial exploration of different measures of biodiversity on the Scotian Shelf and in the Bay of Fundy, however, underscores the need for greater research in this area. In addition, it is further recommended that for EBSA identification purposes, further research is required to explore the implications of functional diversity, both within trophic guilds or trophic levels, and across them.

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