Oceanographic monitoring of the Gully MPA : a synopsis of data collected by the Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program / by Jeffrey W. Jackson, Erica J. H. Head, Lindsay I. Beazley, and Andrew T. Cogswell. : Fs97-18/337E-PDF

"In 2004, the Gully was established as Atlantic Canada's first Marine Protected Area (MPA) under Canada's Oceans Act. While the oceanographic setting of the Gully MPA has been described, little has been done to assess changes in its physical, chemical, or biological properties, which is essential in evaluating whether the MPA is meeting its conservation objectives. Since the late 1990's, the Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program (AZMP) has routinely collected hydrographic and biological data within the Gully MPA, although until now these data had not been examined in the context of environmental monitoring. Here, we present a compilation and reproducible analysis of oceanographic data collected at four fixed sampling stations in the Gully between 2000 and 2018. Temperature, salinity, oxygen, and nutrient and chlorophyll a concentrations were examined, as were wet weight biomass and abundance of the most common copepod taxa. Seasonal and inter-annual variability was high and few trends were observed, although mid-depth temperatures showed increasing trends at all stations. The main goal of this report is to provide operational advice for effective monitoring of the Gully's oceanographic properties, with a focus on identifying redundancies or gaps in the AZMP's existing monitoring strategy. We also provide a preliminary assessment of the MPA’s oceanographic environmental monitoring indicators"--Abstract, page xiii.

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publications.gc.ca/pub?id=9.904148&sl=1

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