University Events

Description: SMAST East 101-103 and Via Zoom

Abstract: A baseline assessment of crustacean has many applications, it can used to quantify organisms for comparisons throughout years, as a pilot study to determine best practices for abundance surveys, or to explore species distribution and aggregation. Windfarms and climate change have the potential to be major drivers of environmental change on the continental shelf. Estimating the absolute abundance, distribution, and preferences of these species will allow researchers, years from now, to quantify the environmental changes and discern population patterns. This baseline assessment discerned that hermit crabs were the most common crustacea in the survey, Atlantic rock crabs had the largest biomass, crustaceans aggregate at a wide range of distances in similar locations over time, and temperature, competitors, and sediment have the biggest influence in distribution.