Thermal habitat constraints on zooplankton species associated with Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) on the US Northeast Continental Shelf

Recent changes in the diet and survival of Atlantic puffin chicks in the face of climate change and commercial fishing in midcoast Maine, USA

“…At the same time, increased precipitation and associated runoff from rivers entering the Gulf of Maine are bringing more organic colloids (ultramicroscopic particles are so small that they do not settle and cannot be separated by ordinary filtration) that reduce carbon fixation by phytoplankton (Balch et al 2012). These factors contribute to diminished concentrations of oil-rich zooplankton such as Calanus finmarchicus (Pershing et al 2005;Friedland et al 2013), one of the principal foods of puffin forage fish. The onset of the increase in SST described by Mills et al (2013) is consistent with the decline in primary productivity described by Balch et al (2012) along a study transect from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, after 2005, a region that is within the Gulf of Maine where puffins spend much of the year.…”

Spring bloom dynamics and zooplankton biomass response on the US Northeast Continental Shelf

“…Zooplankton performs a critical ecosystem function by transferring energy from phytoplankton to upper trophic levels, thus changes in zooplankton biomass could have important ecological consequences. For instance, an early spring bloom in the Gulf of Maine may be detrimental to upper trophic levels, as zooplankton biomass in the Gulf of Maine has been observed to influence a variety of pelagic consumers such as fish and whales (Darbyson et al, 2003;Friedland et al, 2013;Heath and Lough, 2007;Pershing et al, 2009). However, the early blooms would be expected to provide increased energy flux to benthic resources such as benthic feeding fish and invertebrates (Kirby et al, 2008;Woodland and Secor, 2013).…”

Decadal Distribution and Abundance Trends for the Late Stage Copepodites of Pseudocalanus spp. (Copepoda: Calanoida) in the US Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem.

“…For example, warming of the North Sea has already been correlated with changes in the zooplankton community, resulting in low food levels for cod larvae that have led to a decline in overall recruitment (Beaugrand et al, 2003). Evidence was found that adult cod stocks in the North Atlantic have been unable to rebuild because climate change has altered the distribution of temperatures, causing low levels of zooplankton prey for larval stages (Friedland et al, 2013). The present study has found that increasing temperatures in the 2000s has depressed phytoplankton food stocks and the abundance of the dominant copepod Pseudocalanus spp., a major prey item of larval fish.…”

“…It is generally believed these relationships are masked or confounded by the interaction of complex physical and biological processes that operate on different spatial and temporal scales (Heath and Lough, 2007). Nonetheless, recent studies in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank regions have begun to utilize lengthening time series to link fish recruitment with variations in zooplankton abundance (Pershing et al, 2005;Mountain and Kane, 2010;Friedland et al, 2013) Pseudocalanus is a genus of small calanoid copepods that often dominate plankton samples collected in neretic waters of the Northern Hemisphere (Corkett and McLaren, 1978). Since their production cycle coincides with the spring bloom of diatoms, they are usually classified as winter-spring species in the Northwest Atlantic (Davis, 1987).…”