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Impact of urbanization on the water quality, fish habitat, and fish community of a Lake Ontario marsh, Frenchman’s Bay

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Abstract

Frenchman’s Bay is a barrier beach wetland with a highly urbanized watershed located east of Toronto, along the north shore of Lake Ontario. Degradation of water quality has reduced the historically large stand of emergent vegetation to fringe emergent beds to the north and south of the Bay. Altered hydrology and runoff from the urban watershed and a nearby major highway have resulted in poor water quality, and warmer waters at the northern site. By contrast, the southern site has considerably cleaner and cooler water, as it is influenced by exchange of good-quality water with Lake Ontario. These differences in water quality were reflected in the composition of the fish assemblages that were sampled at the two sites over a 2-year period. Comparisons with past studies indicate that the dominant fish community of Frenchman’s Bay has been relatively stable for the last 20 years. Scores for the Wetland Fish Index, an indicator of wetland condition, were significantly higher in the south site than in the north site, which corresponded to significant differences in Water Quality Index scores. Although the northern portion of Frenchman’s Bay shows clear signs of degradation, the southern portion contains important fish habitat for western Lake Ontario.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the Ontario Innovation Trust, City of Pickering, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank the helpful comments from Dr. D. Noltie and an anonymous reviewer. Capable field assistance was provided by K. Kostuk, B. Radix, M Strack, A. Aiken, D. Quinn and J. Labuda. This report has been based in part on Senior Honours Projects submitted by H. Weinstock and D. Jerome under the supervision of Dr. Chow-Fraser to the Department of Biology at McMaster University. We are also grateful to the Frenchman’s Bay Yacht Club for permission to use their docks and to store our canoes on their premises between sampling trips.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1, Canada

    Titus S. Seilheimer, Anhua Wei & Patricia Chow-Fraser

  2. Environmental Earth Sciences, University of Toronto at Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario, M1C 1A4, Canada

    Nicholas Eyles

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  1. Titus S. Seilheimer
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  2. Anhua Wei
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  3. Patricia Chow-Fraser
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  4. Nicholas Eyles
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Correspondence to Titus S. Seilheimer.

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Seilheimer, T.S., Wei, A., Chow-Fraser, P. et al. Impact of urbanization on the water quality, fish habitat, and fish community of a Lake Ontario marsh, Frenchman’s Bay. Urban Ecosyst 10, 299–319 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-007-0028-5

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