Norway-Canada Comparison of Marine Ecosystems

Labrador/Newfoundland and Barents Sea/Norwegian Shelf are two important subarctic regions whose marine ecosystems have many things in common. Up until the 1990s they were home to the two largest cod populations in existence and supported intensive fisher ies. The cod larvae feed upon Calanus finmarchicus and the adults on capelin but their recruitment trends are often out-of-phase due to opposite response in the two regions to the variability in the North Atlantic Oscillation. In the 1990s the cod off L abrador and Newfoundland collapsed through a combination of overfishing and harsh environmental conditions while in the Barents Sea cod increased in spite of heavy fishing pressure due to improved environmental conditions A comparative research program f ocusing upon the impacts of climate variability on the marine ecosystems will be developed with 6 research foci: (1) Temperature variability at interannual to multi-decadal time scales and the role of large-scale atmospheric forcing. (2) The role of C. finmarchicus in fish recruitment and exploration of the hypotheses on the effects of advection of copepods from the core production regions in the deep basins onto the adjacent shelves. (3) Biophysical modelling of the drift and growth of fish larvae, as well as on zooplankton dynamics. (4) The role of climate variability and change on cod and other fish populations and their inclusion in ecosystem-based management. (5) The use of size-spectra in understanding marine ecosystems. (6) Predictions of the impact of future climate change on the marine ecosystem. A workshop will be held (i) to develop a multiyear science plan and (ii) to initiate research. Follow-up visits by scientists from each country to the other will help finalize the research plans a nd further the comparative studies initiated during the workshop. The science plan would be submitted to the national funding agencies for consideration in 2006.