In aquatic environments, low dissolved oxygen concentrations can result in depressed bivalve defense systems while promoting anaerobic bacterial growth, ultimately leading to increased bivalve mortality rates. Although the relationship between low oxygen availability and bivalve mortality has been previously examined, the mechanisms of mortality remain not well understood, limiting our ability to predict mass mortality events....

Introduction Bivalve aquaculture has direct and indirect effects on plankton communities, which are highly sensitive to short-term (seasonal, interannual) and long-term climate changes, although how these dynamics alter aquaculture ecosystem interactions is poorly understood. Methods We investigate seasonal patterns in plankton abundance and community structure spanning several size fractions from 0.2 µm up to 5 mm, in a deep...

This study examines the hydrodynamic regimes in Shediac Bay, located in New Brunswick, Canada, with a focus on the breach in the Grande-Digue sand spit. The breach, which was developed in the mid-1980s, has raised concerns about its potential impacts on water renewal time and water quality in the inner bay. The aims of this study, using mathematical modeling approaches, were to evaluate the flow regimes passing through the bre...

After collapsing in the late 1990s, the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence population of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) is recovering. Here, we evaluate the use of under-ice eDNA sampling to monitor the population and confirm overwintering locations. From 2018 to 2020, water samples were collected from transects spanning 35 km of the Miramichi River system, accounting for the effects of sampling site, month, sampling depth and tid...

Bivalve aquaculture may provide a variety of ecosystem services including nitrogen extraction from estuaries, which are often subject to excess nutrient loading from various land activities, causing eutrophication. This nitrogen extraction may be affected by a combination of various non-linear interactions between the cultured organisms and the receiving ecosystem. The present study used a coupled hydro-biogeochemical model to...

Sustained periods of anoxia, driven by eutrophication, threaten coastal marine systems and can lead to mass mortalities of even resilient animals such as bivalves. While mortality rates under anoxia are well‐studied, the specific mechanism(s) of mortality are less clear. We used a suite of complementary techniques (LT50, histology, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, and valvometry) to show that the proliferation of anaerobic bacter...

Coastal embayments are at risk of impacts by climate change drivers such as ocean warming, sea level rise and alteration in precipitation regimes. The response of the ecosystem to these drivers is highly dependent on their magnitude of change, but also on physical characteristics such as bay morphology and river discharge, which play key roles in water residence time and hence estuarine functioning. These considerations are es...