Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Responses Of The Symbiotic Sea Anemone Anthopleura Elegantissima To Microplastics, Robert Beck

WWU Graduate School Collection

The Salish Sea, a large and complex fjord estuary, receives waters impacted by a watershed that includes 8 million people aggregated in several large urban and industrial centers. Microplastics, defined as plastic particles less than 5 mm in their largest dimension, are transported from this watershed into the Salish Sea where they are easily ingested by filter feeders, herbivores and predators. To measure effects of microplastics on one common and important intertidal species, we exposed the sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima to polyester microfibers at concentrations of 0, 0.01, or 0.1 g/L in the laboratory and measured the responses of the …

Clam Garden Bivalve Dietary Responses And Trophic Shifts In Relation To Environment, Octavio Cruz

WWU Graduate School Collection

Clam gardens are a method of Indigenous aquaculture, involving altering of beach gradients, to increase clam habitat that have been used since pre-contact. Ecological examinations of clam gardens have been increasingly led by First Nations groups, as restoration projects begin on clam gardens aiming to re-establish pre-contact conditions.

The purpose of this study was to measure condition indices of traditionally-harvested littleneck clams (Leukoma staminea), dietary parameters and beach-level oceanographic conditions were used to investigate differences between clam gardens from non-walled beaches in Kanish Bay, Quadra Island, British Columbia. I utilized non-metric multidimensional scaling, distance-based redundancy analysis, and Bayesian 3-source isotopic …