Acronym NA
Category
Fisheries
Title Understanding Fish Migration, Habitat Use and Population Connectivity to Restore Resilience in Swedish Fisheries-Ecological Systems Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Mikael Elfman Coordinator email Mikael.Elfman@nuclear.lu.se
Coordinator institution
ULUND - Lund University (Sweden)
Institutions involved
NA
Start year 2013 End year NA Funding (€) € 339,289 Website NA Summary Overfishing, climate change, and pollution all reduce resilience in marine fish populations, their ecosystems, and the fisheries that depend on them. Fisheries scientists have an emerging awareness of the importance of complex patterns of habitat use, connectivity, and homing behaviours in many fishes. However, understanding of these complexities is poor for many species. Artificial tagging has brought some enlightenment, but these studies are expensive and restricted to large animals. On the other hand, otoliths (small bone-like structures in the heads of fishes) increment daily, incorporating trace elements and isotopes from the surrounding environment; thus each fish bears a life-time record of environmental experience. We propose to apply a ?next-generation? advance in otolith analytic methodology to analyze oxygen and nitrogen stable isotopes at the fine spatial scales of an otolith ?life history record? with techniques that do not consume or destroy material. This is extremely useful for rare samples, e.g., from endangered species. Oxygen can provide a thermal history and nitrogen a trophic history (?who eats who?); at present the latter cannot be measured at the temporal scale we propose (months to weeks). We apply these methods to cod in the Kattegat and endangered European eel in the Baltic Sea to determine connectivity, habitat use, provenance, and philopatry. Benefits include better understanding of fish ecology for cooperative fisheries management and resilience.
Keywords
Fish habitat;
Fish biology;
Fish;
Marine Region
18
West of Gotland (27.IIId.27)
14
Skagerrak, Kattegat (27.IIIa)
24
Sound, Belt Sea or Transition Area (27.IIIb,c)
22
Southern Central Baltic-West (27.IIId.25)
23
Baltic West of Bornholm (27.IIId.24)
5
Marine Region Map
