Climate Change	Fisheries & Aquaculture	Coastal Development	Aquatic Habitats	Eutrophication	Contaminants	Biodiversity	Emerging Issues

Aquatic habitats are the building blocks of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. They provide homes for the animals, plants, and microbes that inhabit the coastal and offshore waters. Intact marine habitats in the Gulf of Maine support productive fisheries and serve a host of other functions such as cycling nutrients, filtering pollution, trapping sediments, storing carbon, buffering upland areas from storm damage, and providing recreation opportunities. Habitats of the Gulf of Maine do not exist in isolation, a myriad of ecological relationships and oceanographic processes link them and each habitat functions as part of the larger Gulf of Maine landscape. The movement of water plays a major role in the interconnection of habitats by transporting nutrients, food, larvae, sediments, and pollutants among them. Some of the Gulf of Maine's habitats are relatively well known and scientific understanding of them has expanded in recent years. Other habitats such as cold-water corals have only recently been explored.

Aquatic habitats in the Gulf of Maine include: freshwater habitats of rivers, streams and lakes; coastal habitats such as estuaries, beaches, rocky shores, kelp beds and salt marshes; and marine offshore habitats from deep waters to shallower banks and ledges. The Gulf of Maine Marine Habitat Primer provides an overview of the coastal and marine habitats in the Gulf of Maine.

The Gulf of Maine Council has identified the restoration and protection of habitats as one of its primary goals in the 2007-2012 Action Plan, and there are several Council subcommittees that focus on the characterization, restoration, protection and monitoring of aquatic habitats in the Gulf:

• Habitat Conservation: Creating a regional strategy for marine habitat conservation.
• Habitat Monitoring: Planning and implementing habitat monitoring initiatives.
• Habitat Restoration: Developing a Gulf-wide coastal and marine habitat restoration plan; assisting in implementation of the Council/NMFS restoration partnership grant program; and pursing land protection initiatives.

Three theme papers been identified that will be developed for the State of the Gulf of Maine Report, and will be available in 2010/11:

• Coastal Ecosystems and Habitats (.pdf)
• Offshore Ecosystems and Habitats
• Watershed Status

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