Atlantis Ecosystem Model

Ocean Acidification Research

The goal of the Integrative Marine Ecology team is to research the ecological processes and human activities that affect ecosystem composition, structure and function in the environments in which fish and fisheries exist. Understanding the factors that sustain the ecosystem will provide the scientific underpinnings needed to inform ecosystem-based management of living marine resources in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

Ecosystem-based management can be an important complement to existing approaches of fisheries management, particularly in systems with multiple human sectors and changing environmental conditions. Researchers in the IME team provide policymakers with science-based tools that help to anticipate outcomes and tradeoffs related to managing target species, marine habitats, and species of concern.

The Integrative Marine Ecology team will draw upon expertise from within and outside the NWFSC to address the following six research foci:

• The factors and processes affecting patterns of diversity of marine communities
• Interactions of target stocks with predators, competitors and prey
• The effects of weather and climate on target species and their ecological communities
• Interactions between marine organisms and their habitat
• The effectiveness of alternative fishery and ecosystem management strategies on the delivery of ecosystem goods and services
• Marine Protected Areas as a fisheries conservation and management tool