The Eastern Shore Islands Area of Interest (AOI) is a large coastal AOI in the Maritimes Region spanning 2089 km2 and extending along 100 km of coastline. While much of the data that led to the area's designation as an AOI was collected in the nearshore coastal areas (i.e., seagrass and kelp distributions, coastal bird nesting sites, herring spawning areas), there is less information available on the fish and invertebrate community structure in offshore areas of the AOI. Current offshore sampling effort is primarily focused in the Summer multi-species RV survey which covers the Scotian Shelf but does not sample within the depth range covered by the AOI (~ <100m depth). Environmental DNA (eDNA) offers a promising approach for biodiversity monitoring that has been gaining increased attention in the marine realm. Through sampling relatively small volumes of water (~1-5 L), eDNA can capture of millions of fragments of eDNA on filters that can then be sequenced to identify the species composition of an area. eDNA metabarcoding is based on the foundations of DNA barcoding, where species are identified solely by their unique DNA sequences. eDNA metabarcoding relies on a comprehensive reference library of gene sequences from known species to rapidly identify which species are captured in every water sample. This method is relatively simple, efficient (with the ability to characterize both fish and invertebrate diversity), and non-invasive, meaning there is no disruption of sensitive benthic habitats or need to dissect tissue samples from captured fish and invertebrates. eDNA has been shown to be comparable to other biodiversity censusing techniques and has the potential to rapidly conduct biodiversity surveys over a relatively large area, such as the Eastern Shore Islands AOI. Our eDNA sampling in the Eastern Shore Islands targets fish and invertebrates using multiple genetic markers (e.g., 12S and COI) to obtain baseline information on these communities across transects spanning from inshore to offshore in the AOI. Over time, we will investigate changes in species richness and community composition using annual eDNA surveys as an ongoing monitoring tool for this coastal region. Cite this data as: Jeffery, N.W. Environmental DNA Monitoring in the Eastern Shore Islands Area of Interest - Offshore. Published: April 2026. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Maritimes Region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth NS.

The Eastern Shore Islands was announced as an "Area of Interest" (AOI) in 2018 by the DFO Maritimes region to potentially be considered for a Marine Protected Area under the federal Oceans Act. As part of its mandate for monitoring established and potential conservation areas, DFO Science regularly deploys instruments including conductivity/temperature/depth (CTD) loggers, and other instruments for measuring dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and other chemical ocean properties. This data collection includes temperature and other oceanographic records for the ESI AOI from June 2024 onward. The data are derived from temperature loggers (Hobo Tidbit loggers or similar) and Sea-Bird MicroCATs, but may in future years include current profiles or additional oceanographic data. These data will be used to monitor temperatures in this coastal region to detect any biological shifts associated with temperature and climate fluctuations, and be used to groundtruth oceanographic models.Cite this data as: Jeffery, N., Stanley, R., Pettitt- Wade, H. (2025): Data of: Baseline oceanographic records for the Eastern Shore Islands Area of Interest.Published: September 2025. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/f0020cec-5671-4908-8fdd-11fc097de99d

Monitoring programs are an important component of Marine Protected Area (MPA) management, providing requisite information on the state of, and changes in, protected ecosystems. Monitoring is required to gauge the efficacy of MPAs towards their conservation objectives and provides information needed to evaluate the benefits provided to biodiversity from restricted access. However, in Nova Scotia’s coastal zone, there is a lack of baseline data, including fish diversity and community structure in macrophyte beds, which makes monitoring intractable. In 2017, the Eastern Shore Islands was identified as a coastal Area of Interest (AOI) for the potential establishment of an MPA. In 2018 an overview was conducted, detailing the spatial and temporal ecological attributes of the AOI. This information revealed a unique coastal ecosystem associated with a dense archipelago and relatively natural seascape. The abundance of plant and algal biogenic habitats within the area was assumed to host a diversity of juvenile fish species. The primary objective of this project is to begin development of a long-term biodiversity monitoring program in the Eastern Shore Islands and other coastal Areas of Interest for conservation planning. We propose implementing this program with the use of direct (beach seines, scuba diving, and stable isotope sampling) and indirect (environmental DNA - eDNA) sampling. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a useful tool to examine marine biodiversity in a non-invasive way, on a small spatial scale. eDNA can be easily collected and filtered and is becoming increasingly cost efficient to sequence and may be a useful marine protected area monitoring tool. While eDNA generally yields comparable results to traditional sampling techniques in terms of biodiversity captured, little is known on how eDNA signals fluctuate across years (or even days to weeks). We will compare species detections using eDNA metabarcoding to visual surveys (scuba and seine nets) to census eelgrass beds across the coastal zone, providing a baseline and time series of species diversity on which to base long-term monitoring. This project will generate inventories of eelgrass bed locations, and fish and invertebrate diversity within eelgrass beds. We additionally collect fish length distribution data to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in size structure over time. The data generated from direct and indirect sampling will provide a comprehensive and ongoing catalog of species diversity and community structure in coastal eelgrass beds, as well as best-practices for sampling eDNA in the coastal environment.Cite this data as: Jeffery, N.W., Pettitt-Wade, H., Van Wyngaarden, M., and Stanley, R.R.E. Maritimes Coastal Biodiversity Monitoring Program – Beach Seining.Published: December 2023. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Maritimes region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth NS. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/dbbcb23a-d018-4b70-b8ec-89997aded770

All island polygons. Islands may overlap as there are islands within islands (e.g., a lake on an island contains an island). GNIS_NAME_1 contains the most atomic name for the island. For example, there are 3797 "Haida Gwaii" islands. If the island has not been named as part of a more specific group or with an individual name, "Haida Gwaii" is the GNIS_NAME_1 value. GNIS_NAME_2 and GNIS_NAME_3 values are null. If the island has a more specific name, "Haida Gwaii" moves to GNIS_NAME_2, and the more atomic name, such as "Moresby Island" is the GNIS_NAME_1. If the island has an individual name, belongs to a group, and is part of Haida Gwaii, the same logic of naming from most to least specific applies. For example, GNIS_NAME_1 = "George Island", GNIS_NAME_2 = "Copper Islands", GNIS_NAME_3 = "Haida Gwaii".

Linear coastlines of BC, including mainland and marine islands. Lines are directionalized and connected. Attributes include a hierarchical key and route identifier

Funded under DFO's Marine Conservation Targets Program in partnership with the Huntsman Marine Science Centre (HMSC), this diver-based imagery and sample collection benthic survey documents the occurrence of sponges at 42 dive sites in the Eastern Shore Islands (ESI) Area of Interest (AOI, ~2089 km2) off the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada from dive surveys conducted in summer 2021 and 2022. Water quality, species occurrences and counts, habitat, slope, and substrate characteristics were catalogued through diver log sheets, camera imagery, specimen vouchers, and high-resolution bathymetric data. A total of 54 dives to depths from 11 to 33 m (below sea level), collecting up to 147 still images, one-hour of video, and 17 specimen samples per site, resulted in 220 observations for 27 different sponge taxa. This included three new records for Canada (Hymedesmia stellifera, Plocamionida arndti, Hymedesmia jecusculum) and a range extension for a species new to science (Crellomima mehqisinpekonuta) which was recently described from the Bay of Fundy. There were also four species which may seem to be new to science (Halichondria sp., Hymedesmia sp., Protosuberires sp., and Sphaerotylus sp.). Sponges were found to occupy a diversity of micro-habitats, often several different ones in proximity. A total of eight distinct habitat classes were defined, based on varying abundances and diversity of sponges and associated benthic species. These are likely widely distributed among the many complex submerged seabed features within this AOI. Collected specimens were preserved and are stored at the Atlantic Reference Centre (ARC) in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick.Cite this data as: Goodwin, C., Cooper, J.A., Lawton, P., Teed, L.L. 2025. Sponge occurrence and associated species and habitat descriptions derived from the 2021 and 2022 SCUBA diving surveys in the Eastern Shore Islands Area of Interest, Nova Scotia. Version 1.4. Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Occurrence dataset. https://ipt.iobis.org/obiscanada/resource?r=eastern_shore_islands_sponge_survey_2021_2022&amp;v=1.4

Fecundity of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) was estimated within five spawning areas (German Bank, Scots Bay, Seal Island, Southern Shore Nova Scotia, and Eastern Shore Nova Scotia) in Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) areas 4WX in 2019 and 2020. The objective of this project was to describe the fecundity-at-size (weight, length, and age) relationships among spawning grounds, compare these relationships to historical fecundity-at-size relationships, and assess the influence of changes in weight-at-age and fecundity over time to the reproductive potential of a unit of spawning stock biomass.Cite this data as: Barrett T. Data of: Fecundity of Herring in Divisions 4WX. Published: September 2021. Population Ecology Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, N.B. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/e39b1318-c9f7-4686-b5e5-7d838c8ac99a

Polygons denoting concentrations of sea pens, small and large gorgonian corals and sponges on the east coast of Canada have been identified through spatial analysis of research vessel survey by-catch data following an approach used by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) in the Regulatory Area (NRA) on Flemish Cap and southeast Grand Banks. Kernel density analysis was used to identify high concentrations and the area occupied by successive catch weight thresholds was used to identify aggregations. These analyses were performed for each of the five biogeographic zones of eastern Canada. The largest sea pen fields were found in the Laurentian Channel as it cuts through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while large gorgonian coral forests were found in the Eastern Arctic and on the northern Labrador continental slope. Large ball-shaped Geodia spp. sponges were located along the continental slopes north of the Grand Banks, while on the Scotian Shelf a unique population of the large barrel-shaped sponge Vazella pourtalesi was identified. The latitude and longitude marking the positions of all tows which form these and other dense aggregations are provided along with the positions of all tows which captured black coral, a non-aggregating taxon which is long-lived and vulnerable to fishing pressures.These polygons identify sea pen fields from the broader distribution of seapens in the region as sampled by Cosmos trawl gear in the Eastern Arctic biogeographic zone. A 0.1 kg minimum threshold for the sea pen catch was identified as the weight that separated the sea pen field habitat from the broader distribution of sea pens with these research vessel tow data and gear type.

Polygons denoting concentrations of sea pens, small and large gorgonian corals and sponges on the east coast of Canada have been identified through spatial analysis of research vessel survey by-catch data following an approach used by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) in the Regulatory Area (NRA) on Flemish Cap and southeast Grand Banks. Kernel density analysis was used to identify high concentrations and the area occupied by successive catch weight thresholds was used to identify aggregations. These analyses were performed for each of the five biogeographic zones of eastern Canada. The largest sea pen fields were found in the Laurentian Channel as it cuts through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while large gorgonian coral forests were found in the Eastern Arctic and on the northern Labrador continental slope. Large ball-shaped Geodia spp. sponges were located along the continental slopes north of the Grand Banks, while on the Scotian Shelf a unique population of the large barrel-shaped sponge Vazella pourtalesi was identified. The latitude and longitude marking the positions of all tows which form these and other dense aggregations are provided along with the positions of all tows which captured black coral, a non-aggregating taxon which is long-lived and vulnerable to fishing pressures.These polygons identify sea pen fields from the broader distribution of seapens in the region as sampled by Campelen trawl gear in the Eastern Arctic biogeographic zone. A 0.05 kg minimum threshold for the sea pen catch was identified as the weight that separated the sea pen field habitat from the broader distribution of sea pens with these research vessel tow data and gear type.

This dataset contains the modelled and observed data used in the publication "Fjord circulation permits persistent subsurface water mass in a long, deep mid-latitude inlet" by Laura Bianucci et al., DFO Ocean Sciences Division, Pacific Region (published in the journal Ocean Science in 2024). An application of the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM v4.1) was run from May 24 to June 27, 2019 in the Discovery Islands region of British Columbia, Canada. Observed temperature and salinity profiles available in this area during this time period are included in the dataset, along with the modelled values at the same times and locations.