Ecodivisions are areas of broad climatic and physiographic uniformity, defined at the continental level.

The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Total Land and Water Area by Ecodistrict” dataset provides land and water area values for ecodistrict framework polygons, in hectares. It includes attributes for a polygon’s total area, land-only area and large water body area.

The “Terrestrial Ecodistricts of Canada” dataset provides representations of ecodistricts. An ecodistrict is a subdivision of an ecoregion and is characterized by distinctive assemblages of relief, landforms, geology, soil, vegetation, water bodies and fauna. For example, the Jeddore Lake ecodistrict (no. 473) is one of five ecodistricts within the Maritime Barrens ecoregion.

Pepin et al. (2014) stated that three nested spatial scales were identified as relevant for the development of ecosystem summaries and management plans: Bioregion, Ecosystem Production Unit (EPU), and Ecoregion. A bioregion is composed by one or more EPUs, while an EPU consists of a combination of ecoregions, which represent elements with different physical and biological characteristics based on the analytical criteria applied. Pepin et al. (2014) reported on the consolidation of data and analyses of ecoregion structure for the continental shelf areas from the Labrador Sea to the mid-Atlantic Bight and provided recommendations on the definition of EPUs in the NAFO Convention Area. The results of two K-means clustering analyses (one geographically constrained and one un-constrained) and expert knowledge (including and considering location of ecoregions, knowledge of the distribution of major marine resources and fish stocks, and geographic proximity for delineation/definition of potential management units) served as guides for evaluation by NAFO’s (North Atlantic Fisheries Organization) working group on ecosystem science and assessments (WG-ESA). The final consensus from the discussions identified eight (8) major EPUs that can serve as practical candidate management units (from the 50 m isobaths, where research vessel data were available, seaward to the 1500 m isobaths) that consist of the Labrador Shelf (NAFO subareas 2GH), the northeast Newfoundland Shelf (subareas 2J3K), the Grand Banks (subareas 3LNO), Flemish Cap (subarea 3M), the Scotian Shelf (subareas 4VnsWX), Georges Bank (parts of subareas 5Ze and 5Zw), the Gulf of Maine (subarea 5Y and part of 5Ze) and the mid-Atlantic Bight (part of subarea 5Zw and subareas 6ABC). Southern Newfoundland (subarea 3Ps) was not included in the original analysis because fall survey data were unavailable. However, it was later added as an EPU after additional analysis of the fish community structure and trends using survey data from the spring, which indicated that this area is heavily influenced by the surrounding EPUs (NAFO 2015).The proposed candidate management units correspond to the EPUs that define major areas within the bioregions which contain a reasonably well defined food web/production system. The working group noted that the consensus solution represents a compromise that aims to define management units based on the boundaries of existing NAFO subareas that are appropriate for estimation of ecosystem and fishery production. References: NAFO. 2015. Report of the 8th Meeting of the NAFO Scientific Council (SC) Working Group on Ecosystem Science and Assessment (WGESA). 17-26 November 2015, Dartmouth, Canada. NAFO SCS Doc. 15/19.Pepin, P., Higdon, J., Koen-Alonso, M., Fogarty, M., and N. Ollerhead. 2014. Application of ecoregion analysis to the identification of Ecosystem Production Units (EPUs) in the NAFO Convention Area. NAFO SCR Doc. 14/069.

This dataset shows the boundaries of the province's six fire management zones that existed prior to 2014 in which most forest fires received the same type of response. These management zones were based on: * common forest and forest fire management objectives * land use * density of values at risk * fire load * forest ecology The 2014 Wildland Fire Management Strategy moved from a zone-based approach to one where each wildland fire is assessed and receives an appropriate response according to the circumstances and condition of the fire.

Sexual reproduction is critical to the resilience of seagrass beds impacted by habitat degradation or environmental changes, as robust seed banks allow new shoots to establish each year. Reproductive strategies of seagrass beds range on a continuum from strictly annual to perennial, driven by local environmental conditions. We examined the reproductive dynamics of Zostera marina beds at six sites on the Atlantic coast of Canada to characterize how life history strategies are shaped by the surrounding environment. Sites were categorized as wave protected and wave exposed, where protected sites were warm, shallow, with little water movement and muddy sediments, and exposed sites were either shallow or deep, with cooler water and sandy sediments. While mixed life history strategies were evident at all sites, protected eelgrass beds exhibited both the highest and lowest sexual reproductive effort relative to exposed beds. These beds regularly experienced thermal stress, with higher temperature range and extended warm water events relative to exposed beds. The development of reproductive shoots were similar across sites with comparable Growing Degree-days at the beginning and end of anthesis, but the First Flowering Date was earlier at the protected warmer sites relative to exposed sites. With different reproductive shoot density among sites, seed production, seed retention, and seedling recruitment also varied strongly. Only one site, located in a warm, shallow and protected lagoon, contained a mixed life history population with a high reproductive effort (33.7%), strong seed bank, and high seedling establishment. However, a primarily perennial population with the lowest reproductive effort (0.5%) was identified at the warmest site, suggesting that conditions here could not support high sexual reproduction. Robustness of seed banks was strongly linked to reproductive shoot density, although the role of seed retention, germination and seedling survival require further investigation. Our study provides insights into one key aspect of seagrass resilience, and suggests that resilience assessments should include reproductive shoot density to inform their management and conservation.Cite this data: Vercaemer B. and Wong M. Reproductive ecology of Zostera marina L. (eelgrass) across varying environmental conditions. Published: May 2022. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/56cfea6f-aeca-47ed-94ab-c519d9e63c91

Seamounts have been identified as Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) due to their unique oceanography and ecology; they frequently serve as sites for fisheries and as habitat for a number of species of conservation concern. A mix of isolated seamounts and seamount complexes are distributed throughout Canada’s Pacific offshore waters, although only a subset of these are named. We used several pre-existing spatial databases and predictive models to map all named seamounts within Canada’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), all named seamounts fished by Canada in international waters, and any predicted (modelled) unnamed seamounts in the EEZ. These data are intended to inform marine planning initiatives in BC by providing collaborative, peer-reviewed scientific data at scales relevant to a BC coast-wide analysis.

ECO - Business and economic (economy) Economic activities or employment. For example, resources describing labor; revenue; commerce; industry; tourism and ecotourism; forestry; fisheries; commercial or subsistence hunting; and exploration and exploitation of resources, such as minerals, oil, and gas.

BiologicEcologic ISO Feature Dataset symbolization and publication. September 5, 2017.

The RVI/CVI database is derived from the CanEcumene 3.0 GDB (Eddy, et. al. 2023) using a selection of socio-economic variables identified in Eddy and Dort (2011) that aim to capture the overall state of socio-economic conditions of communities as ‘human habitats’. This dataset was developed primarily for application in mapping socio-economic conditions of communities and regions for environmental and natural resource management, climate change adaptation, Impact Assessments (IAs) and Regional Assessments (RAs), and Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA).The RVI/CVI is comprised of five sub-indicators: 1) population change, 2) age structure, 3) education levels, 4) employment levels, and 5) real estate values. Index values are based on percentile ranks of each sub-indicator, and averaged for each community, and for three ranked groups: 1) all of Canada, 2) by province, and 3) by population size. The data covers the Census periods of 2001, 2006, 2011 (NHS), 2016, and 2021.The index is mapped in two ways: 1) as ‘points’ for individual communities (CVI), and 2) as ‘rasters’ for spatial interpolation of point data (RVI). These formats provide an alternative spatial framework to conventional StatsCan CSD framework. (For more information on this approach see Eddy, et. al. 2020).============================================================================================Eddy, B.G., Muggridge, M., LeBlanc, R., Osmond, J., Kean, C., and Boyd, E. 2023. The CanEcumene 3.0 GIS Database. Federal Geospatial Platform (FGP), Natural Resources Canada. https://gcgeo.gc.ca/viz/index-en.html?keys=draft-3f599fcb-8d77-4dbb-8b1e-d3f27f932a4bEddy B.G., Muggridge M, LeBlanc R, Osmond J, Kean C, Boyd E. 2020. An Ecological Approach for Mapping Socio-Economic Data in Support of Ecosystems Analysis: Examples in Mapping Canada’s Forest Ecumene. One Ecosystem 5: e55881. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.5.e55881Eddy, B.G.; Dort, A. 2011. Integrating Socio-Economic Data for Integrated Land Management (ILM): Examples from the Humber River Basin, western Newfoundland. Geomatica, Vol. 65, No. 3, p. 283-291. doi:10.5623/cig2011-044.