Abstract
The aquaculture industry has grown rapidly in Canada during the last three decades, and represents a significant source of employment and revenue for coastal communities. However, this development has altered both the physical and biological attributes of aquatic ecosystems at multiple scales and could displace vulnerable species that utilize these areas as critical habitats . As the aquaculture industry is expected to expand further, there is an increasing need to better understand bay-scale impacts of aquaculture on ecosystem functions and services before aquaculture sites expand into new areas. The objectives of this project are to assess long-term and bay-scale impacts of aquaculture operations on the distribution and abundance of pelagic fishes and other large predators in coastal marine ecosystems . Four complementary approaches are used to determine their distribution and abundance of pelagic fishes and large predators in three separate Bay Management Areas (BMAs) in Southwest New Brunswick and a reference area: 1) s tationary hydroacoustic devices, 2) a coustic receivers, 3 ) water e nvironmental DNA, and 4 ) high resolution thermal imaging drones. A summary of the key results of the project will be presented and discussed.