OAP PRojects IN CORAL REEF ECOSYSTEMS

Assessing vulnerability of the Atlantic Sea Scallop social-ecological system in the northeast waters of the US

Samantha Seidlecki (University of Connecticut), Lisa Colburn (NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center), Shannon Meseck (NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center)

Of the fisheries made up of calcifiers in the Northeast United States, the Atlantic sea scallop fishery is worth more than $500 million per year, is the second highest fisheries revenue in the United States, and the largest wild scallop fishery in the world. The vulnerability and resilience of fishing communities to the effects of warming and Ocean Acidification (OA) on Northeast species is dependent on their adaptive capacity in relation to both social and environmental exposure and sensitivity factors. Communities that harvest a diversity of species may adapt more easily than communities that specialize in one or a few species. The regional contribution of sea scallop to total regional landed value has steadily increased over recent decades as has fishing community dependence on it as a source of revenue. Prior work projecting impacts to scallops in the region found that sea scallop biomass may decline by more than 50% by the end of the century with a large impact on the fishery (Cooley et al. 2015; Rheuban et al. 2018), but new tools and lab results are available for this proposed work that may alter this assessment. The team is working the hypothesis that a spatially- explicit regional projection of changes relative to sea scallop fishing zones can inform fishery management and allow communities that rely on Atlantic sea scallops to plan and become more resilient to future change. This work will develop a recommendation to management to assist scallop industry stakeholders and managers with changes in the fishery that result from projected OA and temperature changes. 
Monday, December 21, 2020
Categories: ocean acidificationsocio-economic impactsadaptation strategiesProjects
Tags: fisheriesfisheries managementProjects_NortheastProjects_HumanDimensionsProjects_Northeast_HumanDimensionsscallopsocean acidfiicationtemperature

Assessment of the Observing Network to Identify Processes Relevant to the Predictability of the Coastal Ocean of the Northeast on Centennial Time Scales

Samantha Siedlecki, University of Connecticut

Over the past 15 years, waters in the Gulf of Maine have taken up
CO2at a rate significantly slower than that observed in the open oceans due to a combination of
the extreme warming experienced in the region and an increased presence of well-buffered Gulf
Stream water. The reduced uptake of CO2 by the shelves could
also alter local acidification rate, which differ from the global rates. The intrusion of
anthropogenic CO2is not the only mechanism that can reduce Ωarag within coastal surface waters.
Local processes like freshwater delivery, eutrophication, water column metabolism, and
sediment interactions that drive variability on regional scales can also modify spatial variability
in Ωarag. Global projections cannot resolve these local processes with resolution of a degree
or more. Some high-resolution global projections have been developed which perform well in
some coastal settings . However, these simulations do not include regional
biogeochemical processes described above which can amplify or dampen these global changes,
particularly in coastal shelf regions. Our hypothesis is that a regionally downscaled projection
for the east coast of the US can be used to evaluate the ability of the existing observational
network to detect changes in ocean acidification relevant stressors for scallops and propose a
process-based strategy for the network moving forward.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Categories: Projects
Tags: University of ConnecticutProjects_NortheastProjects_ModelingProjects_MonitoringNA19OAR0170351scallopsobserving optimization
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