December 20, 2022 — Investigating how a rapidly warming Arctic will affect American lobster populations and the communities that depend on them in New England and Atlantic Canada will be the focus of a University of Maine-led study backed by a $3 million award from the National Science Foundation’s Navigating the New Arctic Program (NNA).
Richard Wahle, director of the university’s Lobster Institute and professor in the School of Marine Sciences, is spearheading the project, dubbed the NNA Lobster Network, joined by 18 other researchers from UMaine, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Columbia University, Florida State University and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Building on long-standing partnerships with the fishing industry, government and academic organizations, the team will investigate how climate-induced Arctic change alters lobster abundance and distribution from coastal Rhode Island to Newfoundland.
NSF funded the study not only as part of its NNA initiative, but also as one of its 10 Big Ideas. The NNA Lobster Network will support investigations into the influence of past and future climate and management scenarios on various physical, biological and socio-economic conditions at different scales; all through cross-sector and cross-border partnerships.