Seston dynamics in a tidal inlet with shellfish aquaculture: a model study using tracer equations

A process-oriented modelling study is used to examine biophysical control of the distribution of particulate organic matter, or seston, in a tidal embayment with shellfish aquaculture. The focus is on the spatio-temporal dynamics of seston as influenced by the processes of water motion and mixing, internal primary production of seston, and the clearance of the water volume by the grazing activity of a large bivalve population. A fluid dynamical framework is used wherein seston is treated as a non-conservative tracer in an advection–diffusion equation with additional source and sink terms. An idealized one-dimensional (1D) tidal inlet is first used to examine the sensitivity of tidally averaged seston concentration and flux to variations in tidal transport, internal production, and shellfish grazing. This model is then applied to Tracadie Bay, a tidal inlet off Canada’s east coast, to illustrate temporal variability in seston level and flux for a more complex tidal regime. The results of this study suggest that seston flux is mainly under physical control, with its spatial distribution set by tidal transport processes. Seston level, on the other hand, is affected by both grazing and production, with the magnitude of these effects being spatially dependent as dictated by the tidal currents. Grazing and production effects on seston are most pronounced near the head of the inlet, which depends on internal, or local, processes. More seaward areas are buffered against these changes due the advection of seston from the adjacent open ocean. Variation in the spatial distribution of grazing activity demonstrates how local processes have inlet-wide effects. The temporal response of the inlet to tidal changes in the incoming far-field seston flux resembles a low-pass filter with a phase lag; temporal changes in seston at the head of the inlet are highly dampened and occur later than the forcing flux at the mouth. The implications of these results for marine bivalve aquaculture in terms of growth potential (seston level) and carrying capacity (seston flux) are discussed.