Aquaculture 2022

February 28 - March 4, 2022

San Diego, California

ABUNDANCE ESTIMATES OF CRUSTACEANS ALONG THE NORTHEASTERN CONTINENTAL SHELF

Amanda Meli* and Kevin D.E. Stokesbury

Department of Fisheries Oceanography, School for Marine Science and Technology,
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth,
836 South Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford, MA 02744, ameli@umassd.edu

 



American lobsters (Homarus americanus), Jonah crabs (Cancer borealis), Atlantic rock crabs ( Cancer irroratus), Portly spider crabs (Libinia emarginata), Hermit crabs (Pagurus pollicaris and Pagurus longicarpus), Snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio ), and Galatheid crabs (Munidopsis curvirostra) are both economic and ecologically important species found along the northeastern continental shelf of North America. Ecosystems are changing due to climate change, windfarm development, fishing pressure, and other drivers. It is important to establish a baseline of species abundance and density to track the changes of the areas overtime. We analyzed drop camera survey data from the 2019 and 2020 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth - School of Marine Science and Technology’s optical survey. These results were comprised of nearly 8,300 stations (Figure 1), to calculate the density and biomass, and trach species distribution. The goals of this study are to test if (1) these crustaceans have an aggregated distribution over the continental shelf, (2) the aggregations of crustaceans are associated with complex substrates (gravel, cobble, rock) along the continental shelf, and (3) temperature and substrate are the primary abiotic factors influencing crustacean distribution. R studio and ArcGIS were used to map each species’ distribution of abundance to explain species assemblage. When the analysis was completed, I compared changes in density and abundance of crustaceans between years  and correlated to temperature, salinity, and substrates.