Simulating dispersal in a complex coastal environment: the Eastern Shore Islands archipelago

The Eastern Shore Islands (ESI) archipelago on the Scotian Shelf supports a rich variety of biogenic habitats and associated diversity of coastal species. The unique and complex geometry of the ESI coastline has a significant impact on circulation and, correspondingly, influences the dispersal of nearshore organisms. For many coastal areas, the ability to accurately resolve the dispersal processes is contingent on the availability of oceanographic models that can resolve fine-scale coastal boundary conditions, including coastlines and bathymetric features. We applied a high-resolution ocean circulation model and Lagrangian particle tracking in the ESI to simulate dispersal of nearshore organisms. Our results revealed predominant southwest–northeast transport that was associated with a nearshore reversal flow. While transport among different zones of the study region is mainly determined by residual currents over the long term, tidal currents dominate patterns of particle dispersal over shorter time scales. An analysis of Lagrangian coherent structures found that they were consistently associated with the mouths of bays, demonstrating that the islands and associated oceanographic processes promote self-retention. These results highlight how complex coastlines and associated oceanographic processes promote retention and underline the need to resolve these fine-scale physical and oceanographic features when estimating biophysical dispersal in the coastal environment.