We will quantify the short- and long-term adaptive responses to harmful algal blooms by commercial and recreational Dungeness crab and razor clam fisheries along the U.S. West Coast.
Why We Care
Many commercial and recreational U.S. fisheries have been hit hard by harmful algal blooms (HABs), some types of which are projected to happen more frequently and with greater intensity in the future. Facing an increasing threat of prolonged Pseudo-nitzschia blooms along the West Coast, commercial and recreational harvesters may choose to mitigate impacts (e.g., revenue, welfare, and food losses) through a variety of adaptive responses.
Such responses include participating in alternative fisheries (cross-fishery spillovers), reallocating effort to different locations (spatial spillovers), or pursuing non-fishing options (spillovers to other sectors or attrition), and will depend on the adaptive capacity of individual harvesters. Understanding adaptive responses and adaptive capacity is critical to predicting and mitigating the economic and social impacts of HABs, both for harvesters and coastal communities.
What We Are Doing
This project will quantify the short- and long-term adaptive responses to HABs by commercial and recreational fisheries, assess the evolution of adaptive responses over time, and assess the relationship between pre-existing community susceptibility, adaptive capacity, and adaptation impacts.
The objectives of the project are to:
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- Quantify the short- and long-term adaptive responses triggered by Pseudo-nitzschia spp. blooms in the commercial Dungeness crab fisheries on the West Coast of the United States, including cross-fishery spillovers, spatial spillovers, and attrition.
- Quantify the short- and long-term cross-fishery spillovers, and potential attrition, triggered by Pseudo-nitzschia spp. blooms in the recreational Dungeness crab and razor clam fisheries on the West Coast of the United States.
- Explore the relationships between the amount and rate of cross-fishery spillover, spatial spillover, and attrition from commercial and recreational Dungeness crab and recreational razor clam fisheries with community-level indicators of susceptibility to HABs and fishing dependence.
Benefits of Our Work
This project will uncover the evolution of adaptive responses in Dungeness crab and razor clam fisheries and the impacts of various adaptation strategies on other fisheries and fishing communities along the U.S. West Coast. Results will provide data that can be used by managers to inform the management of two economically important West Coast fisheries, Dungeness crab and razor clam.
This project is led by Sunny Jardine at the University of Washington, in collaboration with Christopher Free at the University of California at Santa Barbara, David Kling at Oregon State University, and Stephanie Moore and Abigail Golden at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and is funded by the NCCOS Social, Cultural, and Economic Assessment of Harmful Algal Blooms (SEAHAB) program.