Shellfish aquaculture is a developing industry along northeast Pacific coastlines and represents another potential stressor to already impacted nearshore ecosystems. The industry is particularly prominent in Baynes Sound, British Columbia (BC), Canada. The region hosts the operations which account for approximately 35% of all clams and 50% of all oysters produced in BC. Concurrently, it represents one of the most ecologically valuable areas in the northeast Pacific. In this study, I examined the interactions of benthic intertidal shellfish aquaculture with nearshore fish communities using abundance, biodiversity (species richness, diversity, and evenness), and functional diversity (Rao’s quadratic entropy and functional evenness) metrics. Also, I measured habitat complexity, as defined by a contour distance:linear distance ratio, at all fish sampling sites because it has often been identified as a driver of community variation. Fish abundance, biodiversity, and functional diversity did not vary between aquaculture and non-aquaculture sites. Additionally, habitat complexity, while on average was 1.2x greater at aquaculture beaches compared to non-aquaculture reference beaches, was not a strong driver of these indicators. Fish communities in Baynes Sound are relatively homogenous on a small scale and are highly functionally redundant, meaning that there is considerable overlap of species’ roles in the ecosystem. In summary, the presence of shellfish aquaculture in Baynes Sound is not associated with either a positive or negative response of fish communities. Furthermore, these communities are functionally redundant and therefore are likely resilient to ecosystem disturbances. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/6969 |
| Date | 21 December 2015 |
| Creators | Bourdon, Robert |
| Contributors | Dudas, Sarah Elizabeth, Juanes, Francis |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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