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Bringing the Ocean Research Community Together to Address Deoxygenation

By June 20, 2022No Comments

Dr. Gwenäelle Chaillou is waving a red flag about deoxygenation in Canadian waters.

She’s been studying the oxygen levels in the deep waters of the St. Lawrence Estuary for over 20 years, collecting samples with various research cruises, including with Réseau Quebec Maritime (RQM) and the Tracer Release Experiment (TReX), a MEOPAR-RQM collaboration.

Last year, when she took measurements in the fall, she was concerned to see them so low. She hoped to see them rise over the winter, with less human activity on the St. Lawrence. But when she took new measurements this spring, they were even lower. In some areas, she noted the levels were under 10% oxygen saturation, below what would be seen in an Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ), some of the areas with the lowest oxygen levels found in the ocean.

“It’s very alarming,” said Dr. Chaillou. “We are in this moment where we can see very drastic change in the situation of the oxygenation and all the biochemical processes and pathways in the system.”

That’s why she is eager to connect with other deoxygenation researchers from across Canada today, during a national workshop today: “The State of Deoxygenation Research in Canada.”

“The objective during the workshop is to say hello, have a flag in hand and say, we have a problem here too, and it’s not the same in the West Coast, it’s more global. It’s due to climate change, in the North Atlantic Ocean,” she said.

Dr. Chaillou is just one of many researchers across Canada who study deoxygenation in Canada’s waters. But she isn’t the only one seeing the trend, even if causes may be different.

“Oxygen has been measured for a long time, but it is a problem that we can just start seeing because we need a very long time series to see it… it has been proven that there is a negative trend in oxygen in Canada,” said Dr. Ana Franco, Postdoctoral Fellow with the OxyNet project (funded by MEOPAR), which is led by Dr. Philippe Tortell and based at the University of British Columbia. The long-term measurements that make up the time series are an example of the importance of collaboration in the research community.

Because oxygen levels have been mainly an ancillary measurement, Dr. Franco says it hasn’t received as much focus from the research community until more recently. Another challenge is how projects are spread out across the country, so those studying the issue on the West Coast are not well informed on the work of those on the East Coast and in the St. Lawrence or those in the Arctic. That’s why OxyNet has brought together researchers across Canada to focus on this growing issue.

“There are tools that could be shared, time saved, for example, there might be a modeler in the east that implemented a process that a modeler in the Arctic needs. Or maybe someone developed an index for measuring the stress on organisms of deoxygenation. But it’s not widespread or well known,” said Dr. Franco. Based on the amount of interest and emails she received in advance of the event, she said there is clearly a need for more coordination and connection across the deoxygenation research community.

The workshop is broken into three sections: Observation, Modelling, and Biological Impacts of Deoxygenation. Each session will have an overview of current research and tools, with researchers from across Canada, in the Canadian Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic regions. The sessions will end with discussion about enhancing collaboration to address current challenges.

Dr. Franco hopes that the workshop will begin forging a Canada-wide network on the topic and enhance the knowledge sharing that is so important to the research. She said that the Oxynet team recently submitted a paper on the impacts of deoxygenation on ground fish in the Northeast Pacific on how the habitat might change in future due to habitat and climate change, including deoxygenation. The paper is based on bringing together data from various sources that haven’t all been accessible in one place.

Dr. Chaillou is eager to see what collaborations can begin at this workshop. She is interested in proposing a more formal point of connection, such as a research hub or living lab, which could also engage beyond the research community.

“We need to be organized. We need to have strong leadership,” she said.