Evaluation of the recovery status of salt marshes undergoing restoration in Maritime Canada

The partner organization, Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), is a nonprofit organization with their mission being to conserve, restore, and manage wetlands and associated habitats for the benefit of waterfowl, wildlife, and people. In Maritime Canada, DUC has been implementing salt marsh restoration projects for over 15 years. Salt marshes are intertidal wetlands, regularly flooded by tidal waters, and dominated by salt-tolerant vegetation such as cordgrass. Salt marshes are highly productive, providing foraging and nursery grounds for birds, fish, and invertebrates; stabilizing shorelines; protecting coastlines from storm surges and erosion; and sequestering atmospheric carbon. The problem to be addressed is the evaluation of the recovery status of different salt marsh restoration projects in Maritime Canada. This involves the recovery of the marsh platform vegetation community and associated invertebrate community, and of salt pools which are an essential microhabitat providing refuge to fish at low tide. The expertise needed – and for which the intern Tahmina Hoq Bhuiyan will be trained – is high-quality environmental monitoring and sampling, identification of all biota, and integration of collected data to assess recovery status. Such field assessments are time-consuming and require detailed biotic identification knowledge; the wealth of biological information that will be provided to our partner DUC goes beyond the day-to-day business activities. As well, the collected data will be integrated into a recovery status assessment (this is done by comparing restoring sites to reference sites). Together, the information (detailed biotic data and status assessment) will help the partner organization develop criteria for best practices in salt marsh restoration, understand the recovery trajectories possible in different coastal situations (e.g., macrotidal versus microtidal environments), and propose and plan future salt marsh restoration projects.

Faculty Supervisor:

Myriam Barbeau;Jacob Perley

Student:

Partner:

Ducks Unlimited Canada (NS)

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services; Agriculture; Other services (except public administration); Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of New Brunswick

Program:

Business Strategy Internship