Marine soft-bottom polychaete assemblages from the east coast of Canada in 1983 and 1984

Study Extent

Benthic samples collected as part of two oceanographic cruises. The survey area consisted of two regions off the east coast of Canada, the Labrador continental shelf and upper slope and the Hermitage Channel to the south of Newfoundland. The geographic range of the sampling sites along the Labrador continental shelf extends from Hudson Strait (61 °33'N) to Belle Isle Bank (52°42'N) in water depths of 85 to 622 m. A 0.1 m2 van Veen grab was used to obtain 33 benthic samples from the Labrador shelf and slope in October 1983, during the CSS Hudson cruise 83-030. In the Hermitage Channel (47°29'N, 56°25'W), three van Veen grab samples were collected from station HC13 (305-375 m depth) during CSS Dawson cruise 84-040, in December 1984.

Sampling

One of the objectives of the thesis project was to determine assemblages of polychaete families from the Labrador continental shelf and slope and Hermitage Channel. The foraging mode for each group was based on three attributes: the feeding type, the feeding microhabitat, and the motility pattern. Benthic samples were collected for this project using a 0.1 m2 van Veen grab sampler. A subsample of surface sediment was extracted from each grab sample for sediment grain size analysis. The remainder of the sediment was sieved onto a 420 um mesh to extract macrofaunal organisms. These were fixed in 4% buffered formaldehyde and later transferred into 70% ethanol for processing in the laboratory. Macrobenthic organisms were sorted to major taxonomic groups (e.g. Foraminifera, Nematoda, Polychaeta). Only the polychaetes are included in this thesis dataset. Each polychaete was examined under a Wild-M5A dissecting stereomicroscope and classified to family. A total of 7728 polychaete worms were examined in this study. The number of individuals varied considerably among samples, ranging from 5 to 947 worms. Most samples (83.3%) contained less than 500 individuals, with an overall average of 215 worms per sample.

Quality Control

Scientific names associated with resource occurrence records have been mapped to recognized standards - marine taxa have been mapped to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). The WoRMS codes, the AphiaIDs have been included as LSIDs in the occurrence record DwC field scientificNameID.

Method steps

1. Polychaete occurrence data collected as part of the thesis project was reported in numerous tables in the PhD thesis. The tabular data was reformatted, standardized and Darwin Core (DwC) records were created using R by the OBIS Canada data management team (Fisheries and Oceans Canada) in consultation with the thesis author.

Soft bottom polychaete assemblages

1. Polychaeta
   rank: class

Two sampling areas: the first was the Labrador shelf and slope with sites extending from Hudson Strait (61 °33'N) to Belle Isle Bank (52°42'N) in water depths of 85 to 622m; the second area was in the Hermitage Channel (47°29'N, 56°25'W) with samples being collected from station HC13 in water depths of 305-375m.