Marine Fisheries
Title:	Bottoms Up: Potential Effects of Environmental Forcing on Apex Predators in the Gulf of Maine
Author(s):	Walter J. Golet1*, Jason Stockwell2, Graham Sherwood2, Andrew Pershing3, Jeffrey Runge3 and Molly Lutcavage1 1 Large Pelagics Research Center, University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824 2 Gulf of Maine Research Institute, 350 Commercial Street Portland, ME 04101 3 School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, 350 Commercial Street, Portland, ME 04101
Date:	Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Time:	2:25 pm - 3:00 pm
Room:	Lexington
Abstract: The Gulf of Maine, a highly productive shelf region in the northwest Atlantic, supports a large biomass of energetically rich prey species such as Atlantic herring, Atlantic mackerel, and the planktonic copepod, Calanus finmarchicus. Seabirds, marine mammals and large pelagic fish migrate seasonally to this region where consumption of this prey base yields rapid accumulation of lipid stores used for reproduction and migration. Oceanographic data indicate the Gulf of Maine has experienced a pronounced shift in salinity, primary and secondary productivity during the mid-1990’s. Generalized additive models used to assess Atlantic herring and northern Atlantic bluefin tuna somatic condition suggests these oceanographic shifts may have contributed to significant changes in fish condition and lipid energy stores during the previous decade. For example, medium and giant size classes of bluefin tuna experienced a 5-25% decline in summer body weight between the early 1980’s and late 1990’s. Such reductions to key energy stores have the potential to severely alter migration and reproductive patterns of highly mobile species and highlight the importance of understanding and incorporating the effect of bottom up forcing in fisheries management.
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