Science Advisory Report 2009/054

2008 State of the Ocean: Chemical and Biological Oceanographic Conditions in the Gulf of Maine - Bay of Fundy and on the Scotian Shelf

Summary

• Winter, spring and fall nutrient inventories in the Maritimes region were at or above normal levels in 2008 but summer inventories were lower than usual.
• The magnitude of the spring phytoplankton bloom was at or below average in 2008 and well below the 2007 record high level.
• Chlorophyll levels outside of the March-May bloom period have been declining since observations began in 1999.
• At Halifax-2, zooplankton biomass and Calanus finmarchicus abundance both exhibited late peaks of near-average magnitude, and both were above average in the summer. High C. finmarchicus abundance persisted in the fall.
• Cold water Calanus species were more abundant than average at Halifax-2, while warm water shelf species were less abundant than normal. However, these trends were reversed on the broader Scotian Shelf.
• Two numerically dominant small copepod species, Pseudocalanus spp. and Oithona similis, and the shallow water copepod Temora longicornis were more abundant than average on the eastern Scotian Shelf.
• At Prince-5, zooplankton biomass and copepod abundance exhibited an earlier than average peak, which was dominated by offshore species. The copepod community at Prince-5 was dominated by offshore species in 2008, especially in the summer.
• Observations from the Continuous Plankton Recorder indicate that, compared with the historical data record (starting in 1961), recent phytoplankton abundances on the Scotian Shelf have been at or above the long term average while zooplankton abundances have been at or below the norm.

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