In partnership with British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS), Strait of Georgia Business Area, the Blue Carbon Initiative, North Island College and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), M.C. Wright is researching the use of lines seeded with kelp spores to promote the creation of more complex habitat structure. This work is important for understanding how to offset the impacts of log handling and storage, for creating habitat essential to maintain biodiversity and as a tool for sequestering carbon. All field operations were made possible through the A’Tlegay Fisheries Society who have provided both the trained professionals and vessels needed to construct these kelp propagation sites and assist with site monitoring within the WeiWaiKum traditional territory.
Habitat structure and macrobenthic diversity in coastal soft-sediment habitats are positively correlated (Thrush et al. 2006), therefore increasing habitat structure increases substrate complexity which in turn may promote biodiversity and general species abundance. Kelp plays an important role in nearshore ecosystems by providing three-dimensional structure as a habitat substrate, cover and food source for benthic, epibenthic and pelagic organisms. This is thought to lead to increased abundance, biomass and diversity within a complex community structure (Duggins 1988).
The project compares natural reference sites both with and without kelp to experimental sites consisting of multiple kelp propagation methods. The benthic grids of lines aim to provide points of attachment for kelp and other encrusting organisms to naturally colonize. The seeded horizontal lines are suspended near the surface. While a combination of unseeded and seeded vertical lines were deployed extending down through the water column from the surface. Through monitoring and comparing the conditions at the treatment and untreated reference sites over time, we will be able to determine how these different kelp propagation methods affect different habitat communities. The development of these habitat rehabilitation and offsetting treatments is in accordance with the worldwide effort of trying to find reliable modernized climate change solutions.
Thrush, Simon, et al. “Broad-scale factors influencing the biodiversity of coastal benthic communities of the Ross Sea.” Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 53.8-10 (2006): 959-971.
Duggins, D. O. “The effects of kelp forests on nearshore environments: biomass, detritus, and altered flow.” The community ecology of sea otters.Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1988.192-201.
