**Biodiversity Stability of Shallow Marine Benthos in Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada Through Climate Regimes, Overfishing and Ocean Acidification**

Jeffrey B. Marliave, Charles J. Gibbs, Donna M. Gibbs, Andrew O. Lamb and Skip J.F. Young *Vancouver Aquarium (JM, DG, SY) and Pacific Marine Life Surveys Inc. (CG, DG, AL) Canada*

### **1. Introduction**

48 Biodiversity Loss in a Changing Planet

Zhao, K., Popescu, S., et al. (2011). Characterizing forest canopy structure with lidar

(1978-1996),ISSN 0034-4257

composite metrics and machine learning. *Remote Sensing of Environment,* 115, pp.

The highest human population density in British Columbia, Canada is situated around the shores of the Strait of Georgia, where current government policy is focusing early efforts toward achieving ecosystem-based management of marine resources. Climate regime shifts are acknowledged to have affected commercial fishery production in southern British Columbia (McFarlane et al., 2000), and overfishing is well documented in the Strait of Georgia region for a variety of important species, to the extent that Rockfish Conservation Areas have been created (Marliave & Challenger, 2009). As CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere, the oceans become progressively more acidic. While ocean acidification is predicted to be a great threat to marine ecosystems, little is known about its ecosystem impacts. Few taxpayer-funded studies have committed to long-term monitoring of full ecosystem biodiversity. This document presents results of over forty years of private taxonomic monitoring of shallow seafloors in the region centering on the Strait of Georgia. Also presented are records of ambient ocean acidity levels (pH), documented continuously by the Vancouver Aquarium through the same time period. Biodiversity data are summarized in ways that enable visualization of possible relationships to climate regimes and ocean acidification. This work does not attempt statistical analyses, in the hope that the data trends can be incorporated into future models.

Biodiversity survey data can reveal fundamental differences in community function, as with the disparate trophic complexity and rockfish nursery capacity of glass sponge gardens versus reefs (Marliave et al., 2009). Trophic cascades can be elucidated when coupling biodiversity surveys with transect abundance surveys (Frid & Marliave, 2010). It has been suggested that biodiversity provides more accurate definition of climate regime shifts than does physical oceanographic data (Hare & Mantua, 2000) and the abundance, survival and spawning distribution of commercial fish species have been linked to decadal-scale changes in ocean and climate conditions (McFarlane et al., 2000).

Ocean acidification can detrimentally impact anti-predator behaviors of fish (Dix et al., 2010). Ocean acidification is most intensive in the geographic area of the NE Pacific Ocean

British Columbia, Canada Through Climate Regimes, Overfishing and Ocean Acidification 51

Fig. 1. Map of the coast of the eastern North Pacific Ocean, centering on the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, with the six regions for which taxonomic data collations were

organized for shallow marine benthos species.

centering on the present area of study, surrounding the Strait of Georgia (Byrne et al., 2010). Ecosystem impacts of ocean acidification trends have not, however, been segregated from climate impacts such as El Niño winters or climate regime shifts. Indeed, it is difficult to segregate shorter term El Niño and La Niña years from climate regimes (Hare & Mantua, 2000), but there is consensus that the regime shift of 1976/1977 was major, followed by a prominent shift in 2000/2001 (Tsonis et al., 2007). McFarlane et al. (2000) provide evidence of another possible regime shift in 1989.

This data presentation summarizes results of 44 years of biodiversity monitoring in the Strait of Georgia region of southern British Columbia, in comparison with monitoring results for surrounding inland sea and outer coast regions at the same latitude and to the immediate north and south (Figure 1). The data treatment accommodates a continual increase in the knowledge base for identification of benthic nearshore marine life. A principal focus of this analysis is the possible climate shifts that have been proposed as regimes for the NE Pacific Ocean. The contention that biodiversity can serve to define climate regime shifts is implicitly tested in this study for the shallow seabeds of coastal NE Pacific regions. As well, perhaps the first long-term documentation of ocean acidification in this region is presented to permit comparison with any possible trends in biodiversity.
