Development of a Monitoring Protocol for Shellfish Beds on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence
The Canadian Coast Guard (GCC) has mandated the Zone d’Intervention Prioritaire Côte-Nord du Golfe (ZIP CNG) Committee to develop a protocol to characterize the current health status of shellfish beds, and therefore bivalve populations, before a potential oil spill contaminates the banks, and to identify priority shellfish beds in its territory of action. The project consisted of a design stage (2023-2024) and an application stage (2024-2025). The design phase aimed to review the literature on the issues related to shellfish beds and oil spills, concluding on priority species and sites on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as well as to develop a monitoring protocol to characterize the current health status of shellfish banks before a potential oil slick contaminates the banks. The application stage aimed to apply the protocol in order to test the method in the field and adjust it as needed, as well as to collect the first data on our territory. Four sites were sampled during the first year of monitoring (September 2024), one site in Port-Cartier, one site at the mouth of the Moisie River, and two sites in Rivière-Pigou.
Data and resources
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Archive according to the Darwin Core standard. Sampling events, occurrences, and additional measurements are presented in three files.ZIP Open
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Literature review presenting a description of shellfish beds and bivalve species harvested on the North Shore, the risks of oil spills in the Gulf of St.…PDF Open
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Description of the methods used to inventory infaunal macroinvertebrates.PDF Open
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Description and results of the shellfish bed monitoring carried out in summer 2024PDF Open
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Description of variables and the construction of identifiers.ODS Open
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See the dataset on the GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) biodiversity platformHTML Open
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See the dataset on the OBIS biodiversity platform (Ocean Biodiversity Information System)HTML Open
Additional information
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.26071/3b1d31a6-06a3-4340 |
|---|---|
| Temporal extent | 2024-09-02 – 2024-09-20 |
| Vertical extent | 0.0 – 0.3 m |
| Date (creation) | 2024-09-02 |
| Status | completed |
| Update frequency | asNeeded |
| Metadata language | fr |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 |
| Source metadata | ISO 19115 XML |
| Last updated | 2026-07-31 |
| Created | 2026-07-31 |
| API | package_show |