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Biofilms and Size Sorting of Fine Sediment During Erosion in Intertidal Sands

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Abstract

The goal of this research was to investigate size-specific retention of clay and silt-sized grains by biofilms in sandy intertidal sediments. Sediment cores were collected from an intertidal flat in Cole Harbour, NS, and eroded at increasing shear stresses (0.08–0.60 Pa) with a Gust microcosm. Half of the cores were eroded without undergoing prior treatment, while sodium hypochlorite was added to the other cores to destroy biofilms. The disaggregated inorganic grain size distribution of sediment resuspended by the Gust microcosm was then obtained with a Multisizer™ 3 Coulter Counter®, and each treated core was compared with its corresponding untreated core. Overall, significantly less total sediment mass was resuspended from untreated cores than from treated cores. At intermediate shear stresses, the sediment resuspended from treated cores contained a greater proportion of fine and medium silts than the sediment resuspended from untreated cores. Very fine silts and clays were not retained preferentially by biofilms. The results show that biofilms stabilize the sediment, but they do not necessarily enhance the proportion of finest sediment sizes, as previously proposed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Particle Dynamics Lab at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography for providing most field equipment. We are grateful to Vanessa Page, Laura deGelleke, John Newgard, and Claire Normandeau for help with sample processing, as well as to an anonymous reviewer for valuable feedback. This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the US Office of Naval Research (ONR) contracts N00014-08-1-1001 and N00014-10-1-0306 awarded to P.S. Hill.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, PO Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4R2

    Jessica C. Garwood, Paul S. Hill & Brent A. Law

  2. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2Y 4A2

    Brent A. Law

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  1. Jessica C. Garwood
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  2. Paul S. Hill
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Correspondence to Jessica C. Garwood.

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Garwood, J.C., Hill, P.S. & Law, B.A. Biofilms and Size Sorting of Fine Sediment During Erosion in Intertidal Sands. Estuaries and Coasts 36, 1024–1036 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-013-9618-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-013-9618-z

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