Modelling the trophodynamics of a coastal upwelling system ...

• Main Author: Robinson, Clifford L. K.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Subjects: Copepods; spiny dogfish; Squalus acanthias
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0053479; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0053479

Climate variability and its influence on the northeastern Pacific Ocean is of concern to fisheries oceanographers because of the potential impacts on fish production, and management implications about fishery potential. The main objective of my dissertation is to evaluate the interactions between oceanic variability, plankton production, and fish production in a coastal upwelling system off southwestern British Columbia, Canada. A simulation model is constructed that describes the feeding interactions among diatoms, copepods, euphausiids, juvenile and adult Pacific herring (Clupea harengus pallasi), Pacific hake (Merluccius productus), chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias). The trophodynamics model is forced by empirical seasonal patterns in upwelling, sea surface temperature, solar radiation, and by observed hake and herring biomass. The most important simulation result is that there is an imbalance between fish consumption and euphausiid production during the ...