Communities in Inner Frobisher Bay, Nunavut, Baffin Island Over Fifty Years
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TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL CHANGES IN BENTHIC MOLLUSC (BIVALVES AND GASTROPODS) COMMUNITIES IN INNER FROBISHER BAY, NUNAVUT, BAFFIN ISLAND OVER FIFTY YEARS © Erin Coleen Herder A Thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Department of Geography Memorial University of Newfoundland January 2020 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada i Abstract Benthic fauna are a crucial part of the marine ecosystem providing many ecosystem services. Unfortunately, Arctic coastal marine environments are under tremendous pressure from changing climate conditions and it is becoming increasingly important to understand community changes occurring in these environments. Long-term ecological studies in the Canadian Arctic are rare, however, Frobisher Bay provides a unique opportunity to study long-term change in the marine benthos because historical benthic community datasets exist for this region. We focused on the molluscs as indicators of long-term change by comparing community temporal and spatial changes between 1967-1976 and 2016. Significant changes in community composition were observed between these two time periods and shifts in functional trait characteristics were also observed. These changes coincided with long-term environmental change in the region. Our results highlight the need for long-term systematic sampling which is fundamental to our understanding of Arctric marine ecosystems and for identifying long- term ecosystem change. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Evan Edinger and Alec Aitken for their on- going support throughout the duration of this thesis and for their assistance in the field. I especially thank them for the opportunity to study and conduct field work in the Canadian North. I thank my family and friends who provided the encouragement I needed to finish this thesis. I thank undergraduate research assistant Jordon Rozon (University of Saskatchewan) for providing me with the updated species and abundance data derived from the Wacasey et. al (1979, 1980) reports. I extend a huge thank you to Ben Misiuk for his assistance in the field and for all his time spent assisting me with my various habitat mapping and GIS questions. I would also like to thank Robert Deering who helped sieve many mud samples, Taylor Hughes who helped sort benthic samples, Alec Aitken for his assistance with mollusc identifications, Alison Pye who helped with carbon and nitrogen analyses of sediment samples, Barbara Neves for her assistance with my many statistics questions, and thank you to my many DFO colleagues who provided me with support while completing my thesis and who helped answered my many questions along the way. I also thank the staff and faculty within the Geography Department who were so supportive throughout my time at MUN. I also thank the crew of the CCGS Amundsen and MV Nulialjuk and the Inuit research assistants who participated and helped process samples onboard the MV Nulialjuk cruise in 2016 for iii their support at sea to collect all the samples for this thesis as this project would not have have been possible without their dedication at sea. Financial support for this thesis was provided by an NSERC Discovery Grant (Evan Edinger) and the ArcticNet project “Integrated marine geoscience to support environmental impact assessment and sustainable development in Frobisher Bay, Nunavut”. I was able to attend ArcticNet Annual Science Meetings and GeoHab conferences due to financial support through ArcticNet and Memorial University. I was able to attend the Arctic Benthic Ecology field course in Svalbard, Norway due to financial support from the ArcticNet training fund. I am forever greatful for the opportunity to study and experience the uniqueness of the Canadian and Norwegian Arctic. iv Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Contents .............................................................................................................................. v List of tables ..................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... x List of Appendices ........................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview ................................................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Questions and Hypothesis ......................................................................... 4 1.3 Study Area ................................................................................................................. 5 1.4 Literature Review ...................................................................................................... 9 1.4.1 Arctic Change: Global Trends ............................................................................ 9 1.4.2 Environmental Change: Frobisher Bay ............................................................ 10 1.4.3 Benthic-Pelagic Coupling ................................................................................. 14 1.4.4 Identifying benthic community change through long-term studies .................. 19 1.4.5 Molluscs: Indicators of Long-Term Change? ................................................... 24 1.4.6 Methods for Assessing Long-Term Change ..................................................... 28 1.4.6.1 Taxonomic and Functional Traits .............................................................. 28 1.4.6.2 Habitat Mapping ........................................................................................ 30 1.4 Thesis Structure ....................................................................................................... 32 1.5 References ............................................................................................................... 34 Co-Authorship Statement.................................................................................................. 60 Chapter 2 Long-term temporal change in the molluscan communities of Frobisher Bay, Nunavut, Canada ............................................................................................................... 61 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 61 2.2 Methods ................................................................................................................... 64 2.2.1 Study Area ........................................................................................................ 64 2.2.2 Sources of Historical Data ................................................................................ 64 v 2.2.3 Infaunal and Sediment Sampling ...................................................................... 67 2.2.4 Analysis ............................................................................................................ 69 2.3 Results ..................................................................................................................... 75 2.3.1 Long-term Environmental Data Sources .......................................................... 75 2.3.2 Mollusc Diversity ............................................................................................. 81 2.3.3 Multidimensional Scaling Analysis .................................................................. 87 2.3.4 Biological Traits Analysis ................................................................................ 89 Table 2.6. Summary of SIMPER Analysis identifying within station similarity among the historical and modern Iqaluit and Cairn Island stations. ......................... 90 2.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 97 2.4.1 Long-term Change in the Physical Environment ............................................. 99 2.4.2 Long-Term Benthic Community Change ....................................................... 104 2.4.3 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 113 2.5 References ............................................................................................................. 114 Chapter 3 Long-term spatial change observed in the molluscan (Bivalvia and Gastropoda) communities of Frobisher Bay, NU ................................................................................ 125 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 125 3.2 Methods ................................................................................................................. 129 3.2.1 Study Area ...................................................................................................... 129 3.2.2 Multibeam Data Collection ............................................................................ 129 3.2.3 Benthic Sampling and Mollusc Identification