Principal Investigator Heidi M. Sosik Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution co-Principal Investiga... more Principal Investigator Heidi M. Sosik Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution co-Principal Investigators Stace Beaulieu Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Rubao Ji Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Steven Lentz Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joel Llopiz Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Michael Neubert Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Changsheng Chen University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Susanne Menden-Deuer University of Rhode Island Tatiana Rynearson University of Rhode Island Rachel Stanley Wellesley College
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Temporal variation in demographic rates has been observed in various fish populations and environ... more Temporal variation in demographic rates has been observed in various fish populations and environmental influences are likely to be a key factor. Here we show how it can be important to combine state-space models for environmental covariates and demographic rates when evaluating effects of the former on the latter. In an application to Georges Bank Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), we show how estimates of the environmental covariate can be aliased with unknown temporal variation in growth rates and that stronger and opposite effects of the environment can incorrectly be found when the autocorrelation in the growth rate is not separately modeled. The perception of effects on maturity also depends on whether an appropriate distribution is considered for the maturity observations. Bottom temperature did not improve prediction of maturity parameters, but temporal variation driven by other sources did. Both bottom temperature and temporal variation improved performance of growth models. Fina...
Climate change and fishing can have major impacts on the distribution of natural marine resources... more Climate change and fishing can have major impacts on the distribution of natural marine resources. Climate change alters the distribution of suitable habitat, forcing organisms to shift their range or attempt to survive under suboptimal conditions. Fishing reduces the abundance of marine populations and truncates their age structure leading to range contractions or shifts. Along the east coast of the United States, there have been major changes in fish populations due to the impacts of fishing and subsequent regulations, as well as changes in the climate. Black sea bass, scup, summer flounder, and winter flounder are important commercial and recreational species, which utilize inshore and offshore waters on the northeast shelf. We examined the distributions of the four species with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center trawl surveys to determine if the along-shelf centres of biomass had changed over time and if the changes were attributed to changes in temperature or fishing pressu...
Between 2014 and 2016, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including physical oceanographers... more Between 2014 and 2016, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including physical oceanographers, biologists, economists and anthropologists developed a working example of an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) for three ecologically distinct regions of the Northwest Atlantic; Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and the Grand Banks, as part of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS). In this paper, we review the transdisciplinary and collaborative process by which the IEA was developed, with a particular focus on the decision points arising from the IEA construct itself. The aim is to identify key issues faced in developing any IEA, practical decisions made to address these issues within the working group and lessons learned from the process.
Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990-2001, were analyzed to exa... more Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990-2001, were analyzed to examine the alongstream evolution of the western North Atlantic shelfbreak front and current, following its path from Cape Farewell, Greenland, to its termination near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Over 700 synoptic sections were used to construct a mean three-dimensional description of the structure of the shelfbreak front,
ABSTRACT A spatially explicit stratification climatology is constructed for the Northwest Atlanti... more ABSTRACT A spatially explicit stratification climatology is constructed for the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf using daily averaged hydrographic fields from a 33-year high-resolution, data-assimilated reanalysis dataset. The high-resolution climatology reveals considerable spatio-temporal heterogeneity in seasonal variability with strong interplay between thermal and haline processes. Regional differences in the magnitude and phasing of the seasonal cycle feature earlier development/breakdown in the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) and larger peaks on the shelf than in the Gulf of Maine (GoM). The relative contribution of the thermal and haline components to the overall stratification is quantified using a novel diagram composed of two key ratios. The first relates the vertical temperature gradient to the vertical salinity gradient, and the second relates the thermal expansion coefficient to the haline contraction coefficient. Two distinct regimes are identified: the MAB region is thermally-dominated through a larger portion of the year, whereas the Nova Scotian Shelf and the eastern GoM have a tendency towards haline control during the year. The timing of peak stratification and the beginning/end of thermally-positive and thermally-dominant states are examined. Their spatial distributions indicate a prominent latitudinal shift and regionality, having implications for the seasonal cycle of ecosystem dynamics and its interannual variability.
Principal Investigator Heidi M. Sosik Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution co-Principal Investiga... more Principal Investigator Heidi M. Sosik Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution co-Principal Investigators Stace Beaulieu Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Rubao Ji Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Steven Lentz Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joel Llopiz Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Michael Neubert Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Changsheng Chen University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Susanne Menden-Deuer University of Rhode Island Tatiana Rynearson University of Rhode Island Rachel Stanley Wellesley College
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Temporal variation in demographic rates has been observed in various fish populations and environ... more Temporal variation in demographic rates has been observed in various fish populations and environmental influences are likely to be a key factor. Here we show how it can be important to combine state-space models for environmental covariates and demographic rates when evaluating effects of the former on the latter. In an application to Georges Bank Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), we show how estimates of the environmental covariate can be aliased with unknown temporal variation in growth rates and that stronger and opposite effects of the environment can incorrectly be found when the autocorrelation in the growth rate is not separately modeled. The perception of effects on maturity also depends on whether an appropriate distribution is considered for the maturity observations. Bottom temperature did not improve prediction of maturity parameters, but temporal variation driven by other sources did. Both bottom temperature and temporal variation improved performance of growth models. Fina...
Climate change and fishing can have major impacts on the distribution of natural marine resources... more Climate change and fishing can have major impacts on the distribution of natural marine resources. Climate change alters the distribution of suitable habitat, forcing organisms to shift their range or attempt to survive under suboptimal conditions. Fishing reduces the abundance of marine populations and truncates their age structure leading to range contractions or shifts. Along the east coast of the United States, there have been major changes in fish populations due to the impacts of fishing and subsequent regulations, as well as changes in the climate. Black sea bass, scup, summer flounder, and winter flounder are important commercial and recreational species, which utilize inshore and offshore waters on the northeast shelf. We examined the distributions of the four species with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center trawl surveys to determine if the along-shelf centres of biomass had changed over time and if the changes were attributed to changes in temperature or fishing pressu...
Between 2014 and 2016, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including physical oceanographers... more Between 2014 and 2016, an interdisciplinary team of researchers including physical oceanographers, biologists, economists and anthropologists developed a working example of an Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) for three ecologically distinct regions of the Northwest Atlantic; Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine and the Grand Banks, as part of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS). In this paper, we review the transdisciplinary and collaborative process by which the IEA was developed, with a particular focus on the decision points arising from the IEA construct itself. The aim is to identify key issues faced in developing any IEA, practical decisions made to address these issues within the working group and lessons learned from the process.
Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990-2001, were analyzed to exa... more Twelve years of historical hydrographic data, spanning the period 1990-2001, were analyzed to examine the alongstream evolution of the western North Atlantic shelfbreak front and current, following its path from Cape Farewell, Greenland, to its termination near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Over 700 synoptic sections were used to construct a mean three-dimensional description of the structure of the shelfbreak front,
ABSTRACT A spatially explicit stratification climatology is constructed for the Northwest Atlanti... more ABSTRACT A spatially explicit stratification climatology is constructed for the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf using daily averaged hydrographic fields from a 33-year high-resolution, data-assimilated reanalysis dataset. The high-resolution climatology reveals considerable spatio-temporal heterogeneity in seasonal variability with strong interplay between thermal and haline processes. Regional differences in the magnitude and phasing of the seasonal cycle feature earlier development/breakdown in the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) and larger peaks on the shelf than in the Gulf of Maine (GoM). The relative contribution of the thermal and haline components to the overall stratification is quantified using a novel diagram composed of two key ratios. The first relates the vertical temperature gradient to the vertical salinity gradient, and the second relates the thermal expansion coefficient to the haline contraction coefficient. Two distinct regimes are identified: the MAB region is thermally-dominated through a larger portion of the year, whereas the Nova Scotian Shelf and the eastern GoM have a tendency towards haline control during the year. The timing of peak stratification and the beginning/end of thermally-positive and thermally-dominant states are examined. Their spatial distributions indicate a prominent latitudinal shift and regionality, having implications for the seasonal cycle of ecosystem dynamics and its interannual variability.
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Papers by Paula Fratantoni