Grant: Engage Grants Program

Intertidal ecosystems are an important component of marine environments, as they contribute greatly to localbiodiversity, and serve as nursery habitat for several commercial species. As marine systems are also relativelyeasy to access and manipulate, they represent powerful tools to expand our understanding of coastalecosystems. Within intertidal systems, infaunal (animals living within the sediment) communities are idealcandidates for manipulative and mensurative studies due to large populations (high sample size), predictableseasonal patterns, and diverse communities. To study these systems properly, investigators must be skilled intaxonomic identification of small (< 1 mm) infauna (polychaetes, oligochaetes, nematodes, amphipods,crustaceans, bivalves, ostracods, and copepods), and multivariate statistical techniques. Development oftaxonomic and statistical skills are time consuming, and organizations performing these analyses are prone toskill-degradation when key personnel graduate or find new employment. As such, the goal of this project is tofoster a new collaboration between the consulting company Biologica Environmental Services Ltd., and theEcological Interactions Research Program (EIRP) Laboratory at Vancouver Island University in order todevelop robust skill sets in both organizations. Biologica specializes in taxonomic identification of marine andfreshwater invertebrates, while the EIRP Lab specializes in multivariate statistical analyses of coastalecosystems. Together, Biologica and the EIRP Lab will elucidate the differences between infaunalcommunities in three coastal habitat types (exposed sand beaches, sheltered intertidal mudflats, and Aboriginalclam gardens) on Calvert Island, British Columbia. While collaborating on this project, Biological will trainEIRP personnel in taxonomic identification of infauna, and the EIRP Lab will train Biologica personnel inmultivariate statistical methods. This partnership will enhance the ability of Biologica and the EIRP Lab tostudy coastal ecosystems, and develop Biologica's ability to offer statistical analytical services.