Environmental Thematic Maps and Graphics:
Marine and coastal extent: ecosystems and substrate; Gulf of St. Lawrence

The title of this map is "Marine and coastal extent: ecosystems and substrate; Gulf of St. Lawrence." This map provides a visual representation of the different ecosystems and substrate types in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

On the page, there is one map and a legend to the upper left. The map displays the Gulf of St. Lawrence and bordering marine ecoregions.

The legend includes four ecosystem categories: seagrass meadow (pink), kelp forest (red), salt marsh (blue), coral and sponge (purple). The legend presents four substrate types: hard (green), mixed (taupe), soft (light teal) and unmapped (light blue). The legend also has two boundary categories: dashed lines indicate province boundaries and fine black lines indicate marine ecoregions.

The map shows that the coastal gulf region has a mix of seagrass meadow, kelp and salt marsh with large areas of cold water coral and sponge in deeper waters. The map shows that the most common substrate type in the northern and coastal southern Gulf of St. Lawrence is hard, while soft substrate dominates the central part of the gulf.

Sources:
McOwen, C., et al., 2017, "A global map of saltmarshes," Biodiversity Data Journal, Vol. 5: e11764, https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.5.e11764 and http://data.unepwcmc.org/datasets/43 (v.6) (accessed September 20, 2019);
Wilson K.L., M.A. Skinner and H.K. Lotze, 2019,"Projected 21st-century distribution of canopy-forming seaweeds in the Northwest Atlantic with climate change," Diversity and Distributions, Vol. 25:, no. 4, pp. 582-602;
Freiwald, A., et al., 2017, "Global distribution of cold-water corals (version 5.0)," Fifth update to the dataset in Freiwald, et al., 2004, by UNEP-WCMC, in collaboration with A. Freiwald and J. Guinotte, Cambridge (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/3 (accessed June 3, 2019);
Kenchington, E., et al., 2018, Delineation of Coral and Sponge Significant Benthic areas in Eastern Canada Using Kernel Density Analyses and Species Distribution Models, https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/hnp4xr2sy3 (accessed May 14, 2019);
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2016, Oceans Act Marine Protected Areas, https://open.canada.ca/data/fr/dataset/a1e18963-25dd-4219-a33f-1a38c4971250(accessed September 9, 2019);
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2017, Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures, https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/44769543-7a23-4991-a53f-c2cf7c7a946f (accessed September 9, 2019);
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2019, Eelgrass inventory in James Bay, Chaleur Bay, Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/c9ab948f-5009-4dbc-9129-2f6e373f17f6 (accessed September 30, 2019);
Personal communication with Brett Painter, Environment and Climate Change Canada, June 21, 2019;
Personal communication with Heike Lotz, Dalhousie University, June 21, 2019;
Personal communication with John Cristiani and Mary O'Connor, University of British Columbia, June 14, 2019;
Personal communication with Amanda Bates and Jasmin Schuster, Memorial University (February 10, 2020), Personal communication with Arnault LeBris, Memorial University (May 20, 2020);
UNEP-WCMC and F. T. Short, 2018, Global distribution of seagrasses (version 6.0), Sixth update to the data layer used in Green and Short, 2003, Cambridge, (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/7 (accessed September 30, 2020);
Loring, D. H. and D. J. G. Nota, 1973, "Morphology and sediments of the Gulf of St. Lawrence," Bull. Fish. Res. Bd. Can., Vol. 182, https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/8c269a91-d3a2-4f49-943d-6b2401c42cba (accessed November 20, 2019).