Marine Sciences Graduate Assistant Support Application
Principal Investigator: Teresa Johnson (Marine Sciences, UMaine)
Partners: Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Abstract: The American lobster fishery is vital to Maine’s economy. There is a pressing need to evaluate how a possible reduction in fishing effort may influence fisheries yield and the economic value of the this fishery and how fishermen can improve their resilience, or their ability to respond to social and ecological changes that increase their vulnerability. This project requests finical support for a GA who will modify and use an individual based model (IBM) that had been previously developed for the Gulf of Maine lobster to evaluate how yield may change with different levels of fishing efforts (i.e., traps hauls). Long-term research goals include: (1) identifying ways to maximize economic value of the Maine lobster fishery through improved fishery efficiency; and (2) improving the social resilience of lobster fishermen to future threats by preserving social memory and understanding generational differences as they affect the fishery’s vulnerability.