The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans. The changes have significant and predictable effects on its most iconic and commercially important species: the American lobster. As the water warms, lobsters become sexually mature earlier, leading to a decrease in the average size of ovigerous lobsters. Smaller females produce fewer, smaller embryos, which hatch into smaller larvae that are less capable of surviving starvation conditions. Concurrently, the rapid rise in temperature is driving a reorganization of zooplankton community structure and affecting the phenology of zooplankton populations. These changes may have important consequences for the feeding and survival of small, ill-equipped larvae. Our gut dissection and eDNA larval diet study shows that lobster larvae rely on abundant prey that are rich in essential fatty acids for normal development. However, key lipid rich copepods such as Calanus finmarchicus are undergoing temperature-related declines in abundance within the Gulf of Maine which heightens the risk that larvae are becoming food limited.

Primary Presenter: Alexander Ascher, University of Maine and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences (ascher.alex@gmail.com)

Authors:

Alexander Ascher, University of Maine  (ascher.alex@gmail.com)

Maura Niemisto, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences  ()

Donaven Baughman,   ()

Grace Andrews,   ()

Caitlin Haley,   ()

Curtis Morris,   ()

Pete Countway, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences  ()

Richard Wahle, University of Maine  ()

David Fields, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences  ()