January 4, 2022 — An effort to map changing surf clam habitat off the East Coast is among four new research projects to be funded in 2023 with $235,000 from the non-profit Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS).
SCEMFIS approved the funding at annual fall meeting, doling out an overall $109,000 increase in funding from the $126,000 the center approved for the 2022 funding year.
Projects are chosen for funding by members of the Center’s Industry Advisory Board, and with an eye to addressing the highest priorities in finfish and shellfish science. This year’s projects research new methods to chart the habitat overlap between ocean quahogs and surfclams; test better ways to analyze the diets of important predator species in the Gulf of Mexico; examine the financial impact of wind farm development on Northeast fisheries; and design a new, experimental clam dredge.
Clam resource distribution, a GIS summary: As the waters off the U.S. coast continue to warm, surf clams continue to move into deeper, formerly colder waters, causing an overlap in habitat with ocean quahogs, creating a problem for fishermen and regulators as two formerly separate fisheries begin to overlap.
This project funded at $19,719 and led by professor Roger Mann at the Virginia Institute for Marine Science, will develop GIS information charting this overlap using historical survey and fishing data, use temperature data to determine the influence of climate change over time, and use these data sets to project future surf clam migration.