Coastal America Foundation

Benthic Ecology of Buzzards Bay MA & Narragansett Bay RI

High Definition Underwater Video Mapping

Benthic community structure identification to species coupled with water quality loggers and high precision location, high definition video mapping.

<---------- Download Bill Hubbard's scientific article published in Marine Ecology April 2016 on benthic studies in Buzzards Bay.

In 1955 Howard L. Sanders sampled the benthic ecology of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. Following that he worked in Long Island Sound. In 1980 to 1982 Long Island Sound was re-sampled (Pellegrino and Hubbard ,1983). In 2011 a comparative re-sampling of the Sanders stations in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts (Sanders, 1958), was initiated by the Coastal America Foundation . In 2023 similar ecological studies were initiated in Narragansett Bay, RI. This benthic community structure inventory is being conducted in association with the Foundation's Buzzards Bay and Narragansett Bay Oceanographic Project which includes temperature/water quality data logging stations and related climate change benchmarking.

It is the intention of the CAF Buzzards Bay Oceanographic Project to re-sample the Sanders benthic stations during the 5 year project period. Completion of this effort is contingent upon funding.

During 2010 researchers from the Coastal America Foundation obtained the raw data records with the support of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute library team (WHOI records, 1956). The upper sampling stations were re-occupied in fall of 2011 to mimic the original October sampling cruises of Howard Sanders. The original 1955/56 sampler was a modified Forster anchor dredge. The 2011 sampling was conducted with a VanVeen grab for better spatial accuracy and a slightly deeper penetration. Both were processed with a 500 micron seive. The results will be available below as the draft laboratory data is produced. The original Sanders paper is also posted below.

Howard L. Sanders 1958 paper in Limnology and Oceanography