The fish fauna of Gilbert Bay, Labrador: a marine protected area in the Canadian subarctic coastal zone

Abstract

The Marine Protected Area in Gilbert Bay, Labrador is the first established in the subarctic coastal zone of eastern Canada. A standardized survey of the fish fauna of Gilbert Bay was initiated during the ice-free season of 2004 to provide baseline information on the fish present in water less than 15 m deep. Beach seines and gill-nets sampled three management zones within the bay which are afforded different levels of protection from human activity. The 25 species in 15 families recorded belong to five ecological guilds: (1) estuarine and marine fish resident in the bay; (2) anadromous species transiting the bay; (3) marine species which migrate into the bay to spawn; (4) offshore-spawning marine fish for which the bay is a nursery area; and (5) marine species which occasionally migrate into the bay to feed. Gilbert Bay lies in a transition zone between Arctic and cold-temperate biogeographical provinces, and its fish fauna is dissimilar from a cold-temperate fish assemblage described for Trinity Bay in eastern Newfoundland.