Publication Abstract

Physiology to Fisheries: starting steps and future approaches

Physiology to Fisheries: starting steps and future approaches

W.J.F. Le Quesne*, J.K. Pinnegar*

Whilst ocean acidification (OA) operates at the cellular level it is the population and ecosystem level responses that are of societal concern. Given predictions about potential physiological impacts on commercial species and other ecosystem components there is a strong desire to assess potential OA impacts on fisheries. Assessing potential OA impacts on fisheries requires scaling up from physiological processes to ecological processes and examination of the interaction between physiology and ecology. Given the difficulty of large-scale long-term manipulative studies, predictive ecological modelling will form a significant strand in assessment of OA impacts. To conduct this in a timely manner, where possible it is desirable to emulate the impacts of OA through parameter modification in existing ecological and fisheries model structures. In some instances parameters within model could be directly modified on the basis of physiological studies, however in other instances experimental results will have to be objectively or subjectively interpreted to inform reparameterization. A variety of modelling formats exist that aim to emulate population and/or ecosystem processes with fundamentally different model structures. This allows different physiological effects to be emulated across a variety of models. To incorporate ecology into OA studies it is necessary to develop a dialogue between physiologist and ecologists to assess how OA effects can be emulated within existing predictive model structures, and whether all relevant effects of OA can currently be captured. This poster aims to facilitate this dialogue by posing some questions and by providing an example of a starting step down this road.

W.J.F. Le Quesne* and J.K. Pinnegar*

PICES/ICES Symposium on Climate Change Impacts on Fish and Fisheries, Workshop on the effects of ocean acidifcation. 26-29 April 2010, Sendai, Japan.