The NNA Lobster Network: Rapid Arctic change and its implications for fishing communities of the western North Atlantic

Rapid Arctic warming and melting are altering ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, triggering ecosystem changes likely to undermine regional fisheries of New England and Atlantic Canada. These changes will challenge coastal communities, presenting new threats and opportunities. This NNA Research project focuses on links between Arctic change and the iconic American lobster fishery, the most valuable single-species fishery in North America, and a well-studied socio-ecological system. As the species’ geographic range shifts northward in a warming ocean, regional dependencies on this fishery will be affected, so it is important to build capacity for the evaluation of environmental change on fisheries over a range of space and time scales. Our NNA Lobster Network is a binational, transdisciplinary collaborative that aspires to create a broadened understanding of the causes and consequences of physical, biological and socio-economic changes at varying scales of interest under past and future climate and management scenarios.