Evaluating Harvest Management Procedures for Spatially-structured Fish Populations

Many fish populations have spatial structure which is not explicitly recognized in assessment or management. For example, Pacific herring are managed as five discrete stocks in BC, but there is evidence of both regional and within-stock diversity that may determine the capacity of the five large stocks to sustain themselves over time. This spatial structure […]

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An Evaluation of Extinction-Risk Criteria for Pacific Salmon Conservation Units

The objective of this research project is to improve the definition of extinction-risk for Pacific salmon species by determining which extinction-risk criteria best reflect the chance of quasi-extinction (extremely low abundance) for the individual conservation units (CUs), which are spatially-defined management units. Two sets of evaluation criteria will be used; those developed for Canadian biota […]

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Regional variability of zooplankton population dynamics in the northwest Atlantic: Assessing environmental effects with an Individual-Based Model

The intern in partnership with Fisheries and Ocean Canada will apply an individual‐based model (IBM) to explore spatial variability in environmental forcing on the population dynamics of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus. The IBM will include information on life history processes of C. finmarchicus (including development time, mortality and egg production rates) as well as the […]

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Effectiveness of different release strategies for adult Atlantic salmon in the restoration of endangered populations

Atlantic salmon populations throughout much of Atlantic Canada, including Newfoundland, have been in steady decline in recent decades. Many populations depend now on the conservation initiatives, whereby captive fish, reared in a hatchery from eggs to maturity, are released into rivers to supplement declining wild populations. However, concerns have been raised that the fish reared […]

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