BONUS Project INSPIRE

Background and Objective

The scope of the project is to understand habitat requirements of commercial target species at different ontogenetic stages. This is necessary to provide a scientifically sound data base for national and international ecosystem management. The current stock assessments and ICES benchmark working groups identified crucial knowledge gaps. The aim of INSPIRE is to address those shortcomings and improve the ICES data base by directly improving the base line of EU-fishery assessment. On the long run fishery as well as agencies, consumers and last but not least the Ocean ecosystems will profit from improved assessment models for Baltic Sea fish stocks. This will enable us to increase sustainability of fish resources. The aim of the workpackage 3 in INSPIRE is to understand the specific impact of regional areas on population dynamics and distribution of ecological and economical key stone species. A focus is the question how regional stressors are impacting early life stages and entire population dynamics. In current fishery - and coastal zone management severe knowledge gaps exist concerning the contribution of particular coastal nursery areas to population structures of marine fish stocks. A central question is how regional stressors (lokal storm events, coastal midification etc.) impact regional and over-regional population dynamics and fish distribution. The focus of our investigation is the impact of small- and mesoscale drivers and stressors for population dynamics of Western Baltic herring. In the framework of a dissertation project, the contribution of particular spawning areas ( lagoons, estuaries, bays and coastal waters) as well as potential impacts of regional stressors   to herring population dynamics will be investigated.

Approach

We develop analytical methods to evaluate the contribution of different nursery areas to herring population structure in the Western Baltic Sea (e.g. using otolith chemistry to track certain pollution signals). Furthermore, we investigate local causes of natural mortality of herring eggs- and larvae as well as their impacts on overall population dynamics.

Results

For specific results please visit the project homepage.

Links and Downloads

www.bonusportal.org/bonus_projects/viable_ecosystem_projects/inspire