Incorporating Environmental Variability into Ecosystem-Based Management for Penaeid Shrimp in the Southeast U.S.

Project Team

Project Lead: Dr. Robert Dunn – North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR & University of South Carolina

Collaborative Lead: Maeve Snyder – North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR

Other Partners: S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, SCDNR Marine Resources Research Institute, Sapelo Island NERR, ACE Basin NERR, Baruch Marine Field Laboratory, Coastal Carolina University, University of George Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council

Project Background

Shrimp utilize estuarine habitats throughout multiple life stages and are sensitive to changes in environmental conditions and available habitat since their life history occurs on an annual scale. The commercial shrimp fishery along the southeast Atlantic coast, made up of primarily white and brown shrimp, has seen highly variable landings over the past two decades. Environmental conditions could be an explanatory factor but this remains unclear. Likely impacts of climate change in the southeast U.S. include increases in extreme weather events, changes in temperature or precipitation, and sea level rise, and we are already seeing evidence of this environmental variability. There are multiple ways these physical changes could affect shrimp populations, representing research questions that can be investigated through a collaborative research framework.

Project Goals

The research team will use a multi-faceted research approach based on guidance from multiple end-user groups to explore how differences in estuarine habitat types and environmental conditions like temperature and salinity affect shrimp populations. This research will provide information that is critical for the future management of this multi-million-dollar fishery.

Stakeholder Engagement

An important component of this research will include assessing fisher perceptions of trends in commercial shrimp harvest and effort within the context of environmental conditions. This will be accomplished via semi-structured interviews with Georgia and South Carolina shrimpers. The interviews will be designed to determine changes to the shrimp fishery related to harvests, effort, and operations, along with changes in shrimp population, distribution, biology, and black gill disease.