Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:22:56.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Barnacle recruitment on ice-scoured shores in eastern Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2008

Elizabeth A. MacPherson ,
Ricardo Scrosati  and
Patrick Chareka
Elizabeth A. MacPherson
Affiliation:
St Francis Xavier University, Department of Biology, Antigonish, Nova Scotia B2G 2W5, Canada
Ricardo Scrosati*
Affiliation:
St Francis Xavier University, Department of Biology, Antigonish, Nova Scotia B2G 2W5, Canada
Patrick Chareka
Affiliation:
St Francis Xavier University, Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Antigonish, Nova Scotia B2G 2W5, Canada
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Ricardo ScrosatiSt Francis Xavier UniversityDepartment of Biology Antigonish Nova Scotia B2G 2W5Canada email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous observations in the St Lawrence Estuary (eastern Canada) suggested that larvae of intertidal barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides) would settle almost exclusively inside crevices on shores that are scoured by sea ice every winter. It was suggested that the strong ice scour in winter on that coast (which removes organisms outside of crevices) would select for such a larval behaviour. We tested the generality of this pattern by sampling other ice-scoured shores within the Gulf of St Lawrence system. In particular, we surveyed a shore in Nova Scotia where exposed habitats (subjected to strong ice scour in winter) are interspersed with sheltered habitats (which suffer milder ice scour). Such a topographical complexity might allow for the coastal larval pool to contain a proportion of larvae that have no particular settlement preference for crevices, as selective pressures for such a behaviour would be minimal in ice-sheltered habitats. Consistently with this notion, barnacle recruits (which appear after the winter ice melts) occurred abundantly both inside and outside of crevices across the shore in the spring seasons of 2005 and 2006. Average recruit density on rocky surfaces ranged between 337 and 588 recruits dm−2, depending on the habitat. It is therefore possible that barnacle recruitment patterns on ice-scoured shores may be affected indirectly by the structural complexity of the coast.

Keywords

barnacleice scourintertidalrecruitment
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , March 2008 , pp. 289 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, D.K.A. and Conlan, K.E. (2007) Disturbance, colonization, and development of Antarctic benthic communities. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 362, 11–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergeron, P. and Bourget, E. (1986) Shore topography and spatial partitioning of crevice refuges by sessile epibenthos in an ice-disturbed environment. Marine Ecology Progress Series 28, 129–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourget, E., Martel, N., Lapointe, L. and Bussières, D. (1990) Behavioural, morphological, and genetic changes in some North Atlantic populations of the barnacle Semibalanus balanoides. In Garbary, D.J. and South, G.R. (eds) Evolutionary biogeography of the marine algae of the North Atlantic. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bousfield, E.L. (1954) The distribution and spawning seasons of barnacles on the Atlantic coast of Canada. Bulletin of the National Museum of Canada 132, 112–154.Google Scholar
Chabot, R. and Bourget, E. (1988) Influence of substratum heterogeneity and settled barnacle density on the settlement of cypris larvae. Marine Biology 97, 45–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (2007) Temperature–salinity climatologies. [online] Available from http://www.mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/ocean/tsdata.html [accessed 9 July 2007]Google Scholar
Minchinton, T.E. and Scheibling, R.E. (1991) The influence of larval supply and settlement on the population structure of barnacles. Ecology 72, 1867–1879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, S.G. (2001) The larval ecology of marine communities. In Bertness, M.D. et al. (eds) Marine community ecology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, pp. 159–181.Google Scholar
Pineda, J., Starczak, V. and Stueckle, T.A. (2006) Timing of successful settlement: demonstration of a recruitment window in the barnacle Semibalanus balanoides. Marine Ecology Progress Series 320, 233–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saucier, F.J., Roy, F., Gilbert, D., Pellerin, P. and Ritchie, H. (2003) Modeling the formation and circulation processes of water masses and sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. Journal of Geophysical Research 108, C8, 3269, doi:10.1029/2000JC000686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scrosati, R. and Heaven, C. (2006) Field technique to quantify intensity of scouring by sea ice in rocky intertidal habitats. Marine Ecology Progress Series 320, 293–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scrosati, R. and Heaven, C. (2007) Spatial trends in community richness, diversity, and evenness across rocky intertidal environmental stress gradients in eastern Canada. Marine Ecology Progress Series 342, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Underwood, A.J. and Keough, M.J. (2001) Supply-side ecology. The nature and consequences of variations in recruitment of intertidal organisms. In Bertness, M.D. et al. (eds) Marine community ecology. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, pp. 183–200.Google Scholar