Cumulative impacts of anthropogenic stressors on macrobenthic communities at a bay-scale: an experimental approach

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1 Department of Biology, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada
2 Pêches et Océans Canada, Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, Mont-Joli, Quebec, Canda
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.26603v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Marine Biology, Coupled Natural and Human Systems
Keywords
manipulative experiments, microbenthic communities, cumulative impact, anthropogenic stressors
Copyright
© 2018 Carrier-Belleau et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Carrier-Belleau C, Archambault P, McKindsey CW. 2018. Cumulative impacts of anthropogenic stressors on macrobenthic communities at a bay-scale: an experimental approach. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26603v1

Abstract

Human activities such as maritime transport, fishing and aquaculture create environmental stressors affecting the structure and the functioning of benthic communities. While these disturbances can act individually, they can also act synergistically and lead to changes more difficult to predict. The bay of Sept-Îles hosts a harbour receiving the most important ballast volume in North America and represents one of the most eutrophic bays in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This project is part of the Canadian healthy oceans network (CHONe II) and attempts to identify the effect of the interaction of anthropogenic stressors on the macrobenthic invertebrate communities in the bay of Sept-Îles. In situ and laboratory manipulative experiments will be conducted to determine the influence of stressors on biological responses when taken individually, and when these stressors interact through time at different intensities. In that way, these experiments will improve our knowledge of cumulated impacts of multiple stressors on the structure of benthic communities. It will also eventually contribute to species conservation and the management of maritime resources.

Author Comment

This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB