HA3 Effects of Multiple Stressors on Marine Resources
254 Portland Ballroom
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday
() Challenges with monitoring multiple stressors in nearshore and estuarine areas using sentinel species.
Munkittrick, Kelly1, Vallieres, Genevieve1, Peters, Lisa1, Theriault, Marie-Helene2, Courtenay, Simon3, MacLatchy, Deborah1, 1 University of New Brunswick Saint John, Saint John, NB, Canada2 Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada3 Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Gulf Fisheries Centre, Moncton, NB, Canada
ABSTRACT- For the last 12 years, we have been examining the performance of fish populations in large rivers in Canada to develop a strategy for cumulative effects assessment. The approach taken has been to examine indicators of growth, survival and reproduction in one or more species of fish, which are intended to serve as sentinels for all fish living in the area. Initial development of the framework involved assessment of a northern river basin with low population density and relatively few industrial developments. Since 1993, we have been progressively moving towards more complicated environments that receive multiple stressors, and initiated an assessment of the Saint John River basin in 1999. Application of a comparable approach with the Federal Environmental Effects Monitoring program has shown some challenges in transferring the sentinel species approach to Canadian marine and estuarine areas. Monitoring approaches are complicated in many nearshore areas by a relatively low species diversity as well as tidal and seasonal movements of fish. The absence of a unidirectional flow causes additional problems in finding proper reference sites, as the upstream / downstream model is unfeasible. Besides, the inconsistency of effluent dispersion increases the difficulty to link potential effects on fish health of effluent exposure. Finally, a lack of information on certain fish species inhabiting those environments complicate the selection of adequate sentinel species and sampling period. We will give an overview of some of the challenges we have encountered while developing monitoring programs in Saint John harbour and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We will also present some of the additional challenges encountered when monitoring small coastal streams receiving effluents.
Key words: Nearshore, Estuary, Cumulative effects, Fish