Connectivity, persistence, and loss of high abundance areas of a recovering marine fish population in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean.

In the early 1990s, the Northwest Atlantic Ocean underwent a fisheries-driven ecosystem shift. Today, the iconic cod (Gadus morhua) remains at low levels, while Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) has been increasing since the mid-2000s, concomitant with increasing interest from the fishing industry. Currently, our knowledge about halibut ecology is limited, and the lack of recovery in other collapsed groundfish populations has highlighted the danger of overfishing local concentrations. Here, we apply a Bayesian hierarchical spatiotemporal approach to model the spatial structure of juvenile Atlantic halibut over 36 years and three fisheries management regimes using three model parameters to characterize the resulting spatiotemporal abundance structure: persistence (similarity of spatial structure over time), connectivity (coherence of temporal pattern over space), and spatial variance (variation across the seascape). Two areas of high juvenile abundance persisted through three decades whereas two in the northeast are now diminished, despite the increased abundance and landings throughout the management units. The persistent areas overlap with full and seasonal area closures, which may act as refuges from fishing. Connectivity was estimated to be 250 km, an order of magnitude less than the distance assumed by the definition of the Canadian management units (~2,000 km). The underlying question of whether there are distinct populations within the southern stock unit cannot be answered with this model, but the smaller ~250 km scale of coherent temporal patterns suggests more complex population structure than previously thought, which should be taken into consideration by fishery management.

Top-down and bottom-up forces interact at thermal range extremes on American lobster.

Exploited marine populations are thought to be regulated by the effects of fishing, species interactions and climate. Yet, it is unclear how these forces interact and vary across a species' range. We conducted a meta-analysis of American lobster (Homarus americanus) abundance data throughout the entirety of the species' range, testing competing hypotheses about bottom-up (climate, temperature) vs. top-down (predation, fishing) regulation along a strong thermal gradient. Our results suggest an interaction between predation and thermal range - predation effects dominated at the cold and warm extremes, but not at the centre of the species' range. Similarly, there was consistent support for a positive climate effect on lobster recruitment at warm range extremes. In contrast, fishing effort followed, rather than led changes in lobster abundance over time. Our analysis suggests that the relative effects of top-down and bottom-up forcing in regulating marine populations may intensify at thermal range boundaries and weaken at the core of a species' range.

Auditing the accuracy of a volunteer-based surveillance program for an aquatic invader Bythotrephes.

We tested the sampling methods of a volunteer-based monitoring program designed to detect the non-indigenous spiny water flea, Bythotrephes longimanus, and found that the program could detect the majority of Bythotrephes invasions. Volunteers take two vertical hauls with a 30 cm diameter net at each of three pelagic stations. To determine if the volunteers were using a large enough net at their three stations, we performed a 17-lake comparison of the volunteer's net with a 75 cm diameter, research-grade net. We found no difference in the number of stations at which Bythotrephes was detected (paired t-test, p = 0.155) with the two nets, because Bythotrephes densities were above the detection limits for both nets. To determine if three stations were sufficient to detect the invader with the volunteer's net, we deployed it at 30 stations in two lakes with average (Harp Lake, 4.17 Bythotrephes m(-3)) vs. low Bythotrephes densities (Sugar Lake, 0.92 m(-3)). In Harp Lake, repeated randomized sampling of the 30 sets of data indicated that only three stations were needed for 100% capture success. In Sugar Lake, seven stations were needed for 100% capture success, but three stations, the current program design, failed to detect the invasion only 14% of the time.