Award: OCE-1041711

This CAMEO project sort to understand the importance of exchanges of fish populations among marine ecosystems (Intellectual Merit) in support of ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management (Broader Impact). To address our goals we developed an integrated database of existing fishery catches, fishery-independent survey and environmental data for the northwest Atlantic shelf ecosystem (NWACS). We analyzed fishery catches, fishery survey and environmental data from up to 12 separate both estuarine and coastal ecosystems. Our core findings include the fact that the dynamics of fish population north of Cape Hatteras are similar to each other, but different to those populations south of Cape Hatteras (Figure 1). We identified a role for broadscale oceanographic forcing, indicated by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), in explaining these patterns for two important species in NWACS (Atlantic menhaden and blue crab). Also, we developed a full ecosystem model using of the northwest Atlantic coastal shelf which can be used to develop ecosystem reference points. Our model indicates the existence of clear trade-offs among species in establishing ecosystem-based objectives (Fig 2). We aggregated species into functional groups as way of estimating ecosystem reference points. These analyses confirmed that maximum sustainable ecosystem yields were typically less than the sum of the sustainable yields of individual species. Comparing across ecosystems, maximum sustainable yield varied but never exceeded 6 t.km-2 and was typically less than 3 t.km-2 (Fig. 3). In related modeling work, we further demonstrated the importance of understanding the patterns of connectivity in marine ecosystems. We showed the importance of pulses of prey in regulating the recovery of species when subject to high rates of exploitation. Last Modified: 01/25/2016 Submitted by: Thomas J Miller