Habitat associations of juvenile American lobster in three nearshore areas of Newfoundland

This project was completed by the Productive Capacity group (Coastal and Freshwater Ecology Section) in the Newfoundland and Labrador Science Branch of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).

American lobster (Homarus americanus) is a commercially important decapod crustacean species along the east coast of North America, ranging from the Labrador coast south to Cape Hatteras. Juvenile lobster < 40 mm CL (carapace length) recruitment has been studied extensively in the southern portions of their range. However, investigations of settlement habitat association and recruitment of juvenile lobster in the northern extremes along the Newfoundland coast have been largely unsuccessful. We investigated juvenile lobster density, habitat, and depth associations in three areas of Newfoundland, using scuba – Port Saunders area, 8 dives conducted 28 September - 2 October 2017, and Burin Peninsula 10 dives (7 Placentia Bay, 3 Fortune Bay) conducted 30 September - 4 October 2018 over a total seabed area of 9,138 m2, within 200 meters of shore. Port Saunders and Fortune Bay had relatively higher lobster density (0.09 and 0.40 m-2, respectively); >65% were juveniles, in contrast to Placentia Bay where lobster densities of all size groups were low (mean 0.01 m-2) and no juvenile lobsters were observed at all. Where observed all juvenile lobster were significantly associated with shallow (<6 m) habitat and showed no overlap with distribution of adults (>82.5 mm CL) which we observed at depths 6 to 17 m. Our sites were dominated by varying mixes of cobble and pebble (77%); rock/bedrock (12%) and mud/sand/small pebble (11%) substrates interspersed with overlying kelp (32%) and eelgrass (11%) vegetation. We observed no significant associations with substrate or vegetation.

This record contains the geographic locations of the 7 Placentia Bay sites surveyed, and information on the timing and type of data collected at each site, which was one component supported by Coastal Environmental Baseline Program of a larger collaborative project.

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• Animal populations
• Aquatic ecosystems
• Coastal...
• Coastal waters
• Crustaceans
• Form Descriptors
• Habitats
• Marine biology
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• Species Distribution

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:40 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:40 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota, Environment, Geoscientific Information, Oceans
Title Title for the Dataset.	Habitat associations of juvenile American lobster in three nearshore areas of Newfoundland
Description A description of the dataset.	This project was completed by the Productive Capacity group (Coastal and Freshwater Ecology Section) in the Newfoundland and Labrador Science Branch of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). American lobster (Homarus americanus) is a commercially important decapod crustacean species along the east coast of North America, ranging from the Labrador coast south to Cape Hatteras. Juvenile lobster < 40 mm CL (carapace length) recruitment has been studied extensively in the southern portions of their range. However, investigations of settlement habitat association and recruitment of juvenile lobster in the northern extremes along the Newfoundland coast have been largely unsuccessful. We investigated juvenile lobster density, habitat, and depth associations in three areas of Newfoundland, using scuba – Port Saunders area, 8 dives conducted 28 September - 2 October 2017, and Burin Peninsula 10 dives (7 Placentia Bay, 3 Fortune Bay) conducted 30 September - 4 October 2018 over a total seabed area of 9,138 m2, within 200 meters of shore. Port Saunders and Fortune Bay had relatively higher lobster density (0.09 and 0.40 m-2, respectively); >65% were juveniles, in contrast to Placentia Bay where lobster densities of all size groups were low (mean 0.01 m-2) and no juvenile lobsters were observed at all. Where observed all juvenile lobster were significantly associated with shallow (<6 m) habitat and showed no overlap with distribution of adults (>82.5 mm CL) which we observed at depths 6 to 17 m. Our sites were dominated by varying mixes of cobble and pebble (77%); rock/bedrock (12%) and mud/sand/small pebble (11%) substrates interspersed with overlying kelp (32%) and eelgrass (11%) vegetation. We observed no significant associations with substrate or vegetation. This record contains the geographic locations of the 7 Placentia Bay sites surveyed, and information on the timing and type of data collected at each site, which was one component supported by Coastal Environmental Baseline Program of a larger collaborative project.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Animal populations Aquatic ecosystems Coastal... Coastal waters Crustaceans Form Descriptors Habitats Marine biology Nature and Environment Science and Technology Species Distribution
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-01-01
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/3c2e8fc3-9582-4cbe-976d-db1c4d22b7fb
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Fisheries and Oceans Canada | Pêches et Océans Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Science Branch, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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