By Sam Schipani
ORONO — Warming oceans due to climate change have a significant impact on fish in the Gulf of Maine. Fisheries in the region need to adapt to the shifting dynamics — and thanks to research led by the University of Maine, they will soon have science to show them how.
A research team led by UMaine scientist Lisa Kerr, associate professor of fisheries sciences, has received a $1.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue their work to find approaches that will help make fisheries management decisions that are more responsive to the changing climate.
The grant marks the second round of NOAA funding for the project, which began in 2019. This new phase of the initiative aims to expand the expertise of the researchers working on the project, and connect them even more closely with the fishery management professionals who will use the research to inform their choices in a changing climate.
The significance of NCLIM
The economic productivity of Northeast fisheries is threatened by the rapid changes in ocean ecosystems caused by climate change, most notably ocean warming and changes in the Gulf Stream.
As of right now, fisheries use limited climate data to inform their practices, which exacerbates the challenges facing the industry and the communities that rely on it.
The Northeast Climate Integrated Modeling initiative started in 2019 to develop research and tools for marine industries like fisheries to make climate-informed decisions for the Northeast U.S. shelf ecosystem, which includes New England and mid-Atlantic waters.
“The focus of the work is around bringing climate information into the fisheries management process and helping integrate it to inform our decisions,” Kerr said. “A lot of our work involves engaging with stakeholders in the region, and developing the modeling frameworks to test approaches to integrate climate into how we do things like fish stock assessments and set harvest advice for fisheries.”
NCLIM is one of five national projects focused on climate-integrated modeling, and the only one focused on the Northeast U.S.
Through NCLIM, Kerr works with colleagues at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Rutgers University, University of Delaware and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as co–principal investigators. The team includes diverse expertise in climate science, fisheries stock assessment, economics and more.
Kerr noted that NOAA’s Climate and Fisheries Adaptation program funding has been essential to the project.
“The NCLIM project will develop and test the next generation of tools we need for effective fisheries management in a changing climate,” said Jon Hare, director of the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center. “NOAA Fisheries is very pleased to partner with the multidisciplinary NCLIM team to advance climate-informed stock assessments and adaptation strategies to support sustainable fisheries and fishing communities in the Northeast.”
The next phase of NCLIM
The team received $1.2 million for a three-year funding period that started in February 2024. Kerr said that one of the primary goals of this phase of the project is to expand the NCLIM team’s expertise.
“It’s a really big undertaking,” Kerr said. “We started with our focus on climate impacts on fish populations and in this phase we’re expanding more to focus on the impacts to fishing industries and communities.”
This second phase of the project aims to grow the NCLIM community by engaging with stakeholders and scientists in the region. The team will work with fisheries managers and industry representatives to co-develop climate adaptation strategy scenarios. They will also expand their modeling to test different adaptation strategies and their socioeconomic impacts.
One way that they’re doing this is by determining the biological reference points — essentially, the benchmarks for fish stocks to determine whether they are healthy — in the changing environment.
Jerelle Jesse is a Ph.D. student in the School of Marine Science researching the impact of climate change on biological reference points using simulation studies through the NCLIM project.
“We know with climate change that we’re getting this gradual directional change that’s not taken into account with reference points at all, so you’re getting a lot of problems determining if stocks are overfished or not, or if they can rebuild at all,” Jesse said.
Jesse conducts research by making “simulation studies,” a sort of virtual world where she codes models for fisheries based on existing knowledge in order to test the effects of new management approaches.
Jesse said that being involved with the NCLIM project has given her access to networks and opportunities in the professional fisheries management world. She even had the opportunity to help lead and present her research at a workshop composed of scientists and fisheries management professionals.
“That, I think, is the best part of NCLIM from a student perspective,” Jesse said. “A lot of students don’t get that opportunity to meet and learn from actual fisheries managers and scientists. It’s such a good environment to get feedback and meet and be mentored by federal stock assessment scientists and professors from other universities that are doing this niche research.”
NCLIM in the field
NCLIM goes beyond modeling in the lab, though. Kerr said that her team has also participated actively in stock assessment and fisheries management processes, applying the modeling and research they do in the lab to real-life decisions.
“We’ve contributed to getting climate and ecosystem information integrated into several stock assessments,” Kerr said. “ This is really novel to this region.”
Kerr’s graduate students spend a lot of time in the field doing just this work.
“I think it’s sort of the ultimate hands-on research experience,” Kerr said. “I make a point of having them be the face of their work. We’ve had a great track record in my lab of folks getting hired and getting job offers due to that exposure and having strong working relationships with folks before they even graduate.”
Julia Barron, master’s student at the School of Marine Sciences, is one of Kerr’s students. Barron’s work focuses on understanding the effects of climate change on winter flounder population dynamics. She meets with monthly NCLIM meetings with professionals in the field to share progress on her work and gain feedback.
“My experience with NCLIM has been enriching for both my education and future career as a fisheries biologist,” Barron said. “Being able to work on my thesis alongside the working group for the upcoming winter flounder stock assessment has been essential in my learning within my masters program. By sharing my ongoing research with the working group, I hope to contribute to the overall assessment and make a positive impact on the fishery and the many people and communities who depend on it.”
The overall goal of the project is to support sustainable fisheries management in the Northeast U.S. by accounting for the changing ocean ecosystems in fisheries decision making, and to support making forward-looking decisions as people learn how to adapt to these unprecedented changes.
“There’s a real challenge in defining fisheries management that is effective in our dynamic ecosystem and a need for guidance on how to redefine approaches in a thoughtful way in a changing environment,” Kerr said. “It’s exciting that we have a big team and great partners to work on this challenge that we hope will have immediate impacts on our regional management.”
