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Ecosystem Modeling

We will link climate with physical oceanography, lower and upper trophic levels, and economic outcomes through innovative modeling.

Our goals are to improve our ability to predict:

  • production and distribution of lower trophic level species, forage species, fishes, seabirds and marine mammals
  • local impacts on predators, fishermen, and fishery value

Vertically-linked models allow:

  • two-way coupling between ecosystem components, which provides better feedback between components than one-way coupling. For example, the forage and euphausiid dynamics model will be implemented within the spatial ocean-lower trophic level model. This two-way coupling is critical as forage species and zooplankton exhibit strong reactions to each other’s activities.
  • forecasts of economic effects for fisheries dependent on climate scenarios, such as increased operating costs for pollock vessels due to ocean warming effects on southeast Bering Sea pollock.
  • depiction of uncertainty in economic forecasts.

Modeling projects

Go to Vertically Linked Modeling
Team page

  • Forage euphausiid abundance in space in time | Lead: Kerim Aydin
  • Integrate economic-ecological models of pollock and cod | Lead: Michael Dalton; co-PI: Kerim Aydin
  • Spatially explicit integrated model of pollock and cod | Lead: Alan Haynie
  • Management strategy evaluation | Lead: Andre Punt; co-PI: Jim Ianelli
  • Competing fur seal-seabird-pollock model | Lead: Marc Mangel
  • Correlative biomass dynamics model | Lead: Gordon Kruse; co-PI: Franz Mueter

Ecosystem Modeling Committee

The Ecosystem Modeling Committee (EMC) of the North Pacific Research Board has established standards for guiding the ecosystem modeling process for the BEST-BSIERP Bering Sea Project. More about the EMC

Current members are:

  • Dr. Tim Barnett, University of California San Diego
  • Dr. Richard Beamish, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC
  • Dr. Dan Goodman, Montana State University
  • Dr. George Hunt, University of California Irvine
  • Dr. Phil Mundy, NOAA Auke Bay Laboratory, Juneau
  • Dr. Tom Royer, Old Dominion University, Virginia