Dataset: CTD Boothbay to Hague

Our research has shown that the settled abundance of Young-of-Year lobsters is determined to a significant degree by the abundance and delivery of postlarvae to appropriate settlement habitats (Incze et al. 1997, 2000b). Settlement densities and the productivity of the lobster fishery in Maine are distinctly different east and west of Penobscot Bay (Steneck and Wilson 2000; R. Wahle et al., unpubl. Data, in prep.). We want to understand the mechanisms behind these differences, the connections between lobster populations in the northern and central coastal Gulf (that is, transboundary connections in the stock), and the factors that might cause patterns of recruitment to vary (that is, interannual and decadal patterns of change). The data collected with NEC support and other grants is documenting the postlarval supply patterns between the east and west, and those data are being used in a current synthesis effort that includes egg production, circulation modeling, settlement, growth and fisheries production (under a grant from NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program to L. Incze and ten Co-PIs, 2003-2004). The goal is to understand the spatial and physical relationships between egg production and the patterns (spatial and temporal) of recruitment and production in the lobster population. The current synthesis effort is being carried out by U.S. and Canadian scientists (contact L. Incze for further. A paper on postlarval distributions is in prep by Eric Annis (who just completed his Ph.D. at the Uiversity of Maine), L. Incze and others