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Maria-Ines Buzeta


M.Sc.: 2002 - 2008

Co-supervisor: Dr. John Roff, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

Present occupation: Oceans Biologist, DFO St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada

Thesis: Relationship between shallow nearshore species richness and environmental factors in the lower Bay of Fundy and implications for identifying sites of high biodiversity

Maria-Ines Buzeta and the skate Maria-Ines Buzeta filming a skate in an underwater transect in the Bay of Fundy, Canada.

Abstract: This study explored correlations between physical and hydrographic factors and species assemblages and species richness, providing the basis for a conceptual model describing near-shore benthic communities for hard substrate in the outer Bay of Fundy, and for the development of indicators to assist in biodiversity conservation. Factors that characterize the habitat of species assemblages were explored, and sites clustered significantly into a priori geographic regions.

Maria-Ines Buzeta encounters a school of fish Maria-Ines Buzeta doing underwater transects in Deer Island, Bay of Fundy, Canada.
Species assemblages in the Deer Island – West Isles region were significantly different from those in the Passamaquoddy region, and this was correlated to average and range of temperature and salinity, and to geomorphology. Additionally, there was a higher than average potential of finding elevated species richness in the West Isles archipelago, an area with the narrowest ranges of salinity and temperature, corresponding with increasing distance from the influences of estuaries.