Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Ship Time

Over the last 2 years, a group of Canadian scientists from multiple government departments and universities on the east coast has been developing the concept of a "Discovery Corridor" for the Gulf of Maine under the auspices of the Center for Marine Biodiversity (CMB) and the Census of Marine Life. A corridor is defined as a swath of ocean bottom and the water column above it, encompassing a variety of ecologically inter-linked seascapes/habitats that may support a range of biodiversity, and possibly previously unknown species and processes. The Discovery Corridor encompasses an area from the Fundy Isles Region of the lower Bay of Fundy across the Gulf of Maine and out onto the abyssal plains. The proposed expedition will be a multidisciplinary effort that will include biologists from academic institutions (Canadian and US) and DFO, and geologists from NRCan. We will collaborate to characterize, quantify, and map the organisms and habitats in different regions along the Discovery Corridor. We will then attempt to relate biodiversity and habitat characteristics, and generate maps of benthic and pelagic seascapes. These maps will allow us to understand, and eventually predict, patterns of biodiversity and the regulatory factors responsible for these patterns.