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The fish fauna of Gilbert Bay, Labrador: a marine protected area in the Canadian subarctic coastal zone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2007

Joseph S. Wroblewski
Affiliation:
Ocean Sciences Centre, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, A1C 5S7
Leanne K. Kryger-Hann
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, A1B 3X9
David A. Methven
Affiliation:
Department of Biology and Canadian Rivers Institute, University of New Brunswick, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, E2L 4L5
Richard L. Haedrich
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, A1B 3X9

Abstract

The Marine Protected Area in Gilbert Bay, Labrador is the first established in the subarctic coastal zone of eastern Canada. A standardized survey of the fish fauna of Gilbert Bay was initiated during the ice-free season of 2004 to provide baseline information on the fish present in water less than 15 m deep. Beach seines and gill-nets sampled three management zones within the bay which are afforded different levels of protection from human activity. The 25 species in 15 families recorded belong to five ecological guilds: (1) estuarine and marine fish resident in the bay; (2) anadromous species transiting the bay; (3) marine species which migrate into the bay to spawn; (4) offshore-spawning marine fish for which the bay is a nursery area; and (5) marine species which occasionally migrate into the bay to feed. Gilbert Bay lies in a transition zone between Arctic and cold-temperate biogeographical provinces, and its fish fauna is dissimilar from a cold-temperate fish assemblage described for Trinity Bay in eastern Newfoundland.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2007 Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom

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