Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region

Sponge reefs are constructed by hexactinellid (glass) sponges of the Order Hexactinosida. The sponges trap fine sediments, and over centuries of sponge growth and sediment trapping, form large bioherms or reef mounds. Glass sponge reefs are unique habitats found along the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States and they have significant historic, ecological, and economic value. They link benthic and pelagic environments by playing important roles in filtration and carbon and nitrogen processing, and acting as silica sinks. They also form habitat for diverse communities of invertebrates and fish, including those of economic importance. Thus, accurate and up-to-date information on the location and spatial extent of sponge reefs is important to the management and conservation of many of Canada’s Pacific marine species. We generated a map of known sponge reefs, derived from two source shape files: 1) Sponge_Reef_West_Coast, mapped by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), 2) Howesound_Nine_reef_polygons and 3) HoweSound_Five_reef_polygons, which were mapped by DFO and NRCan. The resultant polygon shapefile is published on the GIS hub as a file geodatabase feature class.

Date ( RI_367 ): 2020-05-12

Date ( RI_366 ): 1998-01-01

Date ( RI_368 ): 2022-05-17

RI_412

Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Marine Spatial Ecology and Analytics Section (MSEA) - Anya Dunham ( Research Scientist )

Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada

(250) 756-7012

Credit: Cite this data as: Anya Dunham, 2018. Sponge Reef Areas. Published Jul 01 2018. Data distributor: Anya Dunham, Marine Spatial Ecology Section, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC.

Credit: Conway, K.W. 1999. Hexactinellid Sponge Reefs on the British Columbia Continental Shelf: Geological and Biological Structure with a Perspective on their Role in the Shelf Ecosystem. DFO Can. Stock Assessment Sec. Res. Doc. 99/192. x + 21 p. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/244686.pdf.

Credit: Conway, Kim & Barrie, James & Krautter, Manfred. (2004). Modern siliceous sponge reefs in a turbid, siliciclastic setting: Fraser River delta, British Columbia, Canada. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie - Monatshefte. 6. 335-350. 10.1127/njgpm/2004/2004/335.

Credit: Conway, K.W. & Krautter, Manfred & Barrie, James & Neuweiler, M.. (2001). Hexactinellid sponge reefs on the Canadian continental shelf: A unique "living fossil". Geoscience Canada. 28. 71-78.

Credit: K.W. Conway, J.V. Barrie, W.C. Austin, J.L. Luternauer, Holocene sponge bioherms on the western Canadian continental shelf, Continental Shelf Research, Volume 11, Issues 8–10, 1991, Pages 771-790, ISSN 0278-4343, https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4343(91 )90079-L.

Credit: A. Dunham, S.K. Archer, S.C. Davies, L.A. Burke, J. Mossman, J.R. Pegg, E. Archer, Assessing condition and ecological role of deep-water biogenic habitats: Glass sponge reefs in the Salish Sea, Marine Environmental Research, Volume 141, 2018, Pages 88-99, ISSN 0141-1136, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2018.08.002.

Credit: Dunham, A., Mossman, J., Archer, S., Davies, S., Pegg, J., and Archer, E. 2018. Glass Sponge Reefs in the Strait of Georgia and Howe Sound: Status Assessment and Ecological Monitoring Advice. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Res. Doc. 2018/010. x + 221 p. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/40759271.pdf.

Credit: DFO. 2018. Glass sponge aggregations in Howe Sound: locations, reef status, and ecological significance assessment. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Resp. 2018/032. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/40714767.pdf.

Credit: DFO. 2020. Ground-truthing the latest set of suspected glass sponge reefs in Howe Sound: Reef delineation and status assessment. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Resp. 2020/026. https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/40923812.pdf.

Credit: Krautter, M., Conway, K.W., Barrie, J.V., Neuweiler, M. (2001). Discovery of a “Living Dinosaur”: Globally unique modern hexactinellid sponge reefs off British Columbia, Canada. Facies 44. 265–282. 10.1007/BF02668178.

Credit: Frank Whitney, Kim Conway, Richard Thomson, Vaughn Barrie, Manfred Krautter, George Mungov, Oceanographic habitat of sponge reefs on the Western Canadian Continental Shelf, Continental Shelf Research, Volume 25, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 211-226, ISSN 0278-4343, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2004.09.003.

Status: onGoing; enContinue RI_596

Maintenance and update frequency: biannually; semestriel RI_538

Keywords ( RI_525 )

British Columbia
Howe Sound
Strait of Georgia
Hecate Strait
Queen Charlotte Sound
Georgia Basin
Queen Charlotte Basin
Holocene
BC

Keywords ( RI_528 )

Sponge reefs
Reefs
Sensitive benthic areas
Benthos
Marine geology
Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas
EBSA
Aquatic wildlife
Biogenic habitat
Protected areas
Aphrocallistes vastus
Farrea occa
Heterochone calyx

Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )

Conservation
Aquatic wildlife
Aquatic ecosystems
Ocean floor
Oceans
Habitats

Classification: unclassified; nonClassifié RI_484

Use limitation: Open Government Licence - Canada (http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada)

Access constraints: license; licence RI_606

Use constraints: license; licence RI_606

Spatial representation type: vector; vecteur RI_635

Metadata language: eng; CAN

Character set: utf8; utf8 RI_458

Topic category

Oceans

Begin date: 1998-01-01

End date: 2019-05-01

Reference system identifier: http://www.epsg-registry.org/ / EPSG:3005 / 9.8.4

Distribution format

FGDB/GDB ( Unknown )
GEOJSON ( Unknown )
SHP ( Unknown )

RI_412

Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Marine Spatial Ecology and Analytics Section (MSEA) - Kayleigh Gillespie ( Data Steward )

Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region ( ESRI REST: Map Server )
Web Service;ESRI REST;eng

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - Geodatabase ( HTTPS )
Dataset;FGDB/GDB;eng,fra

OnLine resource: Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )
Supporting Document;HTML;eng,fra

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GeoJSON ( HTTPS )
Dataset;GEOJSON;eng,fra

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - Shapefile ( HTTPS )
Dataset;SHP;eng,fra

OnLine resource: References ( HTTPS )
Supporting Document;PDF;eng,fra

OnLine resource: Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )
Supporting Document;CSV;eng,fra

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )
Supporting Document;PDF;eng

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )
Supporting Document;PDF;fra

OnLine resource: Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region ( ESRI REST: Map Server )
Web Service;ESRI REST;fra

File identifier: 8ba7bced-b63f-462a-a8a1-7c7c8a7bcfa4 XML

Metadata language: eng; CAN

Character set: utf8; utf8 RI_458

Hierarchy level: dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622

Date stamp: 2025-02-06T13:53:46.15Z

Metadata standard name: North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata

Metadata standard version: CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009

RI_414

Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Marine Spatial Ecology and Analytics Section (MSEA) - Anya Dunham ( Research Scientist )

Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada

(250) 756-7012

RI_410

Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Marine Spatial Ecology and Analytics Section (MSEA) - Joanne Lessard ( Program Head )

Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada

(250) 729-8364

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