The Ontario Forest Biomonitoring Network (OFBN) monitors the health of mixed hardwood forests across southern and central Ontario. The data set includes: * Individual Tree Data: Decline Index and other measurements of visual stress symptoms of each tree within 111 plots * Decline Index: The Decline Index is a weighted average of tree stress symptoms (percent dead branches, percent slight or strong chlorosis (pale green-yellow leaves) and percent undersized leaves). Averaged for hardwood trees found within each of the 111 plots in each year. * Invasive Plant Species Presence Data * Salamander Data: numbers of individuals of salamander and other animal species in 14 plots * Tree Regeneration Data: monitors numbers of tree seedlings/saplings in 102 plots * Woody Debris Data: amount of woody debris on ground in 102 plots

Watercourses are line features - natural or manmade - that represent the location of flowing surface water. This product requires the use of geographic information system (GIS) software.

The land cover classes consist of vegetation types (such as forest, wetlands and agricultural crops or pasture) and categories of non-vegetated surface (such as water bodies, bedrock outcrops or settlements). These classes reflect the nature of the land surface rather than actual or potential land use. The 2000 Edition of the Ontario Land Cover Data Base is the Second Edition of this provincial land cover classification. The coverage is derived wholly from Landsat-7 Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite data frames recorded between 1999 and 2002, most from 2000 onward. The Provincial Land Cover (2000) Data Base is divided into 4 individual Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid zone tiles (15, 16, 17, and 18) and is distributed in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) format. Documentation is provided with this database in the form of a user's guide and general use caveats.

## GIS data containing the boundaries of Provincially Significant Employment Zones in the Greater Golden Horseshoe as identified by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing As areas of high economic output, provincially significant employment zones are strategically located to provide stable, reliable employment across the Greater Golden Horseshoe region. They provide opportunities to improve coordination between land use planning, economic development, and infrastructure investments to support investment and job creation over the longer-term.

Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) regions are divided into districts - smaller organizational units - to help manage ministry programs and resources. Extents of the districts were originally compiled by description of: metes and bounds, topographic features, geographic township boundaries, territorial district boundaries, etc. Changes to the extent of the districts have been made over time by MNR district offices. This product requires the use of geographic information system (GIS) software.

Rocky Mountain Ridged Mussels (Gonidea angulata) are listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) as a species of special concern and have been re-assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) as endangered. These fresh water mussels are only found in Canada in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. As a continuation of previous work and to inform future assessments and conservation efforts within this geographic range, seven easily accessible sites known to have high densities of G. angulata were selected as prospective index sites to monitor relative abundance (i.e. mussel bed density) using snorkel surveys. For lake sites, a two-stage sampling design was conducted using transects and quadrats. For the river site, cumulative counts from sides of the river were collected. Some sites were sampled only once while others were sampled multiple times from 2011-2016. Mean mussel densities across all surveys ranged from 0.19 to 2.86 mussels/m2, corresponding to site abundance estimates ranging from 102 to 3,276 mussels. Depth measurements were also taken at most sites to inform the Fish Water Management Tool of the Okanagan Water Management Board.

“4VSW” missions focus on the eastern half of the Scotian Shelf, and occur primarily in March, but sets in both February, and April are also present in the data. These missions use a unique stratification scheme intended to optimize the abundance estimates of cod. Collected data includes total catch in numbers and weights by species. Length frequency data is available for most species, as are the age, sex, maturity and weight information for a subset of the individual animals. Other data such as ageing material, genetic material, and stomach contents are often also collected, but are stored elsewhere. Cite this data as: Clark, D., Emberley, J. Data of Maritimes 4VSW Research Vessel Survey. Published January 2021. Population Ecology Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/a851ce30-e216-4d7d-a29c-05631eef140e

Polygons denoting concentrations of sea pens, small and large gorgonian corals and sponges on the east coast of Canada have been identified through spatial analysis of research vessel survey by-catch data following an approach used by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) in the Regulatory Area (NRA) on Flemish Cap and southeast Grand Banks. Kernel density analysis was used to identify high concentrations and the area occupied by successive catch weight thresholds was used to identify aggregations. These analyses were performed for each of the five biogeographic zones of eastern Canada. The largest sea pen fields were found in the Laurentian Channel as it cuts through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while large gorgonian coral forests were found in the Eastern Arctic and on the northern Labrador continental slope. Large ball-shaped Geodia spp. sponges were located along the continental slopes north of the Grand Banks, while on the Scotian Shelf a unique population of the large barrel-shaped sponge Vazella pourtalesi was identified. The latitude and longitude marking the positions of all tows which form these and other dense aggregations are provided along with the positions of all tows which captured black coral, a non-aggregating taxon which is long-lived and vulnerable to fishing pressures. These polygons identify sponge grounds from the broader distribution of sponges in the region as sampled by Cosmos gear in the Eastern Arctic biogeographic zone. A 40 kg minimum threshold for the sponge catch was identified as the weight that separated the sponge ground habitat from the broader distribution of sponges with these research vessel tow data and gear type.

Get data on the locations of sample sites for the Guide Effectiveness Monitoring Program This dataset shows the locations of sample sites for the Guide Effectiveness Monitoring (GEM) Program. The GEM Program evalutes the effectiveness of forest management guides on songbird occupancy rate and community structure. Learn about the procedures and protocols used for this study in the [Centre for Northern Forest Ecosystem Research Technical Report 004: Effectiveness Monitoring of Forest Management Guides](http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/25011/309546.pdf).

Fecundity of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) was estimated within five spawning areas (German Bank, Scots Bay, Seal Island, Southern Shore Nova Scotia, and Eastern Shore Nova Scotia) in Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) areas 4WX in 2019 and 2020. The objective of this project was to describe the fecundity-at-size (weight, length, and age) relationships among spawning grounds, compare these relationships to historical fecundity-at-size relationships, and assess the influence of changes in weight-at-age and fecundity over time to the reproductive potential of a unit of spawning stock biomass. Cite this data as: Barrett T. Data of: Fecundity of Herring in Divisions 4WX. Published: September 2021. Population Ecology Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, N.B. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/e39b1318-c9f7-4686-b5e5-7d838c8ac99a