The Ecology of Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) in Canadian Arctic Lakes

The range of limnological conditions that support Atlantic cod populations in meromictic Arctic lakes is known to be relatively restricted. The degree to which differences in these features, particularly in the availability of allochthonous and autochthonous prey, affect the condition and growth of cod in these populations is unknown. We compared measures of condition among three Atlantic cod populations on Baffin Island, Nunavut, to assess their relationship to differences in potentially important habitat parameters. We also compared data spanning two decades (Ogac Lake) to five decades (Qasigialiminiq) to assess the degree to which natural and anthropogenic factors may have affected these populations. In general, growth rate and asymptotic length tend to be high under situations of intense cannibalism and when alternative prey species are relatively abundant. Biotic and abiotic habitat features in Ogac Lake appear to have been relatively stable since the 1950s, although the abundance of sea urchins appears to have decreased, which may explain the observation that the incidence of cannibalism has doubled. The mean size of angled cod in Qasigialiminiq has decreased by about 10 cm over the past 20 years.L’étendue des conditions limnologiques qui soutiennent les populations de morue franche dans les lacs méromictiques de l’Arctique est reconnue pour être relativement restreinte. La mesure dans laquelle les différences caractérisant ces conditions a une incidence sur l’état et la croissance des morues n’est pas connue, particulièrement en ce qui a trait à la disponi­bilité de proies allochtones et autochtones. Nous avons comparé les mesures des conditions de trois populations de morues de l’île de Baffin, au Nunavut, dans le but d’évaluer leur relation avec les différences caractérisant des paramètres d’habitat susceptibles d’être importants. Nous avons également comparé des données s’étendant sur deux décennies (lac Ogac) à cinq décennies (lac Qasigialiminiq) pour évaluer la mesure dans laquelle les facteurs naturels et anthropogéniques pourraient avoir une incidence sur ces populations. En général, le taux de croissance et la longueur asymptotique ont tendance à être élevés dans les situations de cannibalisme intense de même que lorsque les espèces de proies de rechange sont relativement abondantes. Les caractéristiques des habitats biotiques et abiotiques au lac Ogac semblent relativement stables depuis les années 1950, bien que l’abondance d’oursins semble avoir diminué, ce qui pourrait expliquer l’observation selon laquelle le cannibalisme a doublé. La grosseur moyenne de la morue prise à la ligne au lac Qasigialiminiq a diminué d’environ 10 centimètres ces20 dernières années

Harvest-induced evolution and effective population size

Much has been written about fishery-induced evolution (FIE) in exploited species, but relatively little attention has been paid to the consequences for one of the most important parameters in evolutionary biology-effective population size (N-e). We use a combination of simulations of Atlantic cod populations experiencing harvest, artificial manipulation of cod life tables, and analytical methods to explore how adding harvest to natural mortality affects N-e, census size (N), and the ratio N-e/N. We show that harvest-mediated reductions in N-e are due entirely to reductions in recruitment, because increasing adult mortality actually increases the N-e/N ratio. This means that proportional reductions in abundance caused by harvest represent an upper limit to the proportional reductions in N-e, and that in some cases N-e can even increase with increased harvest. This result is a quite general consequence of increased adult mortality and does not depend on harvest selectivity or FIE, although both of these influence the results in a quantitative way. In scenarios that allowed evolution, N-e recovered quickly after harvest ended and remained higher than in the preharvest population for well over a century, which indicates that evolution can help provide a long-term buffer against loss of genetic variability.Peer reviewe

Atlantic salmon survival at sea: temporal changes that lack regional synchrony

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Atlantic salmon survival at sea: temporal changes that lack regional synchrony

Spatial and temporal synchrony in abundance or survival trends can be indicative of whether populations are affected by common environmental drivers. In Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), return rates to natal rivers have generally been assumed to be affected primarily by shared oceanic conditions, leading to spatially synchronous trends in mortality. Here, we investigated the existence of parallel trends in salmon sea survival, using data on migrating smolts and returning adults from seven Canadian populations presumed to share feeding grounds. We analysed sea survival, using a Bayesian change-point model capable of detecting nonstationarity in time series data. Our results indicate that while salmon have experienced broadly comparable patterns in survival, finer-scale temporal shifts are not synchronous among populations. Our findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that salmon populations consistently share the same mortality-related stressors in the marine environment. Although populations may have shared greater synchrony in survival patterns in the past, this synchrony may be breaking down. It may be prudent to direct greater attention to smaller-scale regional and population-level correlates of survival.publishedVersio

Five centuries of cod catches in Eastern Canada

The fishery for Northern Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) off Newfoundland and Labrador, Eastern Canada, presents the most spectacular case of an exploited stock crashed in a few decades by an industrial bottom trawl fishery under a seemingly sophisticated management regime after half a millennium of sustainable fishing. The fishery, which had generated annual catches of 100000 to 200000 tonnes from the beginning of the 16th century to the 1950s, peaked in 1968 at 810000 tonnes, followed by a devastating collapse and closure 24 years later. Since then, stock recovery may have been hindered by premature openings, with vessels targeting the remains of the cod population. Previous research paid little attention towards using multicentury time series to inform sustainable catches and recovery plans. Here, we show that a simple stock assessment model can be used to model the cod population trajectory for the entire period from 1508 to 2019 for which catch estimates are available. The model suggests that if fishing effort and mortality had been stabilized in the 1980s, precautionary annual yields of about 200000 tonnes could have been sustained. Our analysis demonstrates the value of incorporating prior knowledge to counteract shifting baseline effects on reference points and contemporary perceptions of historical stock status.publishedVersio

The interactive effects of temperature and food consumption on growth of larval Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida): a bioenergetic model

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in David, C. L., Ji, R., Bouchard, C., Hop, H., & Hutchings, J. A. The interactive effects of temperature and food consumption on growth of larval Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida): a bioenergetic model. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 10(1), (2022): 00045, https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00045.Understanding larval growth, mediated by the interaction of early life traits and environmental conditions, is crucial to elucidate population dynamics. We used a bioenergetic model as an integrative tool to simulate the growth of Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) larvae and to test the sensitivity of modeled growth to temperature and food quantity and quality. The growth was computed as the energy gained through food consumption minus the energy lost through respiration and other metabolic processes. We extended a previously published bioenergetic model to cover the full range of larval length and used a simplified feeding module. This simplification allowed us to build a predictive tool that can be applied to larval Arctic cod at a large spatial scale. Our model suggested that with subzero temperatures in the High Arctic, larvae need to increase food consumption in order to reach the observed length-at-age in late summer. The modeled growth agreed well with the field observations in the High Arctic but was 2–3 times higher than the laboratory-derived growth rate, probably due to differences in food type and selective mortality. Our study reveals important knowledge gaps in our understanding of larval cod growth in the High Arctic, including the lack of empirical estimations of daily ration and respiration for larvae under the natural habitat temperatures.This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, through the Ocean Frontier Institute

Sustaining Canadian Marine Biodiversity: Policy and Statutory Progress

A 2012 Expert Panel Report on marine biodiversity by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) concluded that Canada faced significant challenges in achieving sustainable fisheries, regulating aquacul- ture, and accounting for climate change. Relative to many countries, progress by Canada in fulfilling international obligations to sustain biodiversity was deemed poor. To track progress by Canada since 2012, the RSC struck a committee to track policy and statutory developments on matters pertaining to marine biodiversity and to identify policy challenges, and leading options for implementation that lie ahead. The report by the Policy Briefing Committee is presented here. It concluded that Canada has made moderate to good progress in some areas, such as prioritization of oceans stewardship and strengthening of the evidentiary use of science in decision-making. Key statutes were strengthened through amendments, including requirements to rebuild depleted fisheries (Fisheries Act) and new means of creating marine protected areas (Oceans Act) that allowed Canada to exceed its international obligation to protect 10% of coastal and marine areas by 2020. Public release of mandate letters has strengthened ministerial accountability. However, little or no progress has been made in reducing regulatory conflict with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), decreasing ministerial discretion under the Fisheries Act, clarifying the role of science in sustainable fisheries policy, and accounting for climate change. Five future policy challenges are identified: (1) Ensure climate change impacts and projections are incorporated into ocean-related decision making and planning processes; (2) Resolve DFO’s regulatory conflict to conserve and exploit biodiversity; (3) Limit ministerial discretionary power in fisheries management decisions; (4) Clarify ambiguities in how the Precautionary Approach is applied in sustainable fisheries policy; and (5) Advance and implement marine spatial planning. Since 2012, there has been progress in recover- ing and sustaining the health of Canada’s oceans. Failure to further strengthen biodiversity conservation threatens the capacity of Canada’s oceans to provide ecosystem services that contribute to the resilience of marine life and the well-being of humankind. Unprecedented and enduring changes in the ocean caused by climate change have made the achievement of meaningful progress all the more urgent

Incorporating intra-annual variability in fisheries abundance data to better capture population dynamics

To reduce the risk of overexploitation and the ensuing conservation and socio-economic consequences, fisheries management relies on receiving accurate scientific advice from stock assessments. Biomass dynamics models used in stock assessment tend to rely primarily on indices of abundance and commercial landings data. Standard practice for calculating the indices used in these models typically involves taking averages of survey tow data over large, diverse spatial domains. There is a lot of variability in the choice of methodologies used to propagate index uncertainty into the assessment model, many of which require specifying it through expert knowledge or prior distributions. Here we propose an alternative approach that treats each individual survey tow as an independent estimate of the true underlying biomass in the stock assessment model itself. This reduces information loss and propagates uncertainties into the model directly. A simulation study demonstrates that this approach accurately captures underlying population dynamics and reliably estimates variance parameters. We further demonstrate its utility with data from the Inshore Scallop Fishery of south-west Nova Scotia. Results show significant improvements in parameter estimation over previous models while providing similar predictions of biomass with less uncertainty. This reduced uncertainty can improve the resulting scientific advice and lead to improved decision-making by fisheries managers.publishedVersio

Explicit incorporation of spatial variability in a biomass dynamics assessment model

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Trends in marine survival of Atlantic salmon populations in eastern Canada

Declines in wild Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) abundance throughout the north Atlantic are primarily attributed to decreases in survival at sea. However, comparing trends in marine survival among populations is challenging as data on both migrating smolts and returning adults are sparse and models are difficult to parameterize due to their varied life histories. We fit a hierarchical Bayesian maturity schedule model to data from seven populations in eastern Canada to estimate numbers of out-migrating smolts, survival in the first and second year at sea, and the proportion returning after 1 year. Trends in survival at sea were not consistent among populations; we observe positive, negative, and no correlations in these, suggesting that large-scale patterns of changes in marine survival are not necessarily representative for individual populations. Variation in return abundances was mostly explained by marine survival in the first winter at sea in all but one population. However, variation in the other components were not negligible and their relative importance differed among populations. If salmon populations do not respond in a uniform manner to changing environmental conditions throughout their range, future research initiatives should explore why.publishedVersio