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Year of grant: 2021 Research Area: MARiNAO Project type: PhD Project title: BlueOcean: Blue whiting recruitment, distribution and Ocean-climate processes in the north Atlantic Ridge area Grant number: 8013 Project manager: Brian MacKenzie Institution/company: DTU-Aqua Other participants: Hjálmar Hátún, Jan Arge Jacobsen, Costanza Cappelli, Andre Visser Project period: Planned: 01.01.2022-31.01.2026 Actual: 01.02.2022-30.04.2026 Total budget: 5.368.000 Grant from the FRC in DKK: 3.998.000 Project description: Original BlueOcean represents an innovative attempt to combine mechanistic knowledge of ocean-climate processes in the ridge area to the dynamics of a key species, blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou), in the north Atlantic food web. Blue whiting recruitment and distribution vary widely but the reasons for the fluctuations are unknown, and affect assessment, fishery yields and species in the food web that interact with blue whiting as a predator (e. g., pilot whales, saithe), competitor (e. g., herring, mackerel) and prey (zooplankton). These fluctuations have further societal impacts because they create uncertainty for socio-economic planning in the fishing and fish processing industries (e. g., decisions regarding vessel deployment and staffing), and for attempts to maintain and achieve sustainability objectives. Here we hypothesize that the fluctuations in recruitment and distribution are partly driven by the interactions of ridge topography with climate-ocean processes in the region and specific features of blue whiting early life history. For example, blue whiting recruitment requires both successful development of eggs and larvae, and transport of these offspring from spawning areas west of the British Isles to nursery areas located 100s of km away along the ridge. Climate-ocean processes affecting circulation, transport and water mass properties are likely key for high survival. We will test this hypothesis using both statistical time series analyses and mechanistic, process-based modelling approaches. The project potentially could have high scientific and societal impact in regard to development of improved understanding and models of how climate-ocean variability affects the abundance and productivity of one of the commercially and ecologically most important fish species in Faroese waters, and how this knowledge could contribute to sustainable ecosystem-based management of its fisheries and the marine ecosystem. New science-based solutions are needed to reduce risks to sustainability caused by fluctuations in productivity and to increase likelihood of achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), such as SDG 14 Life Below Water. The project includes activities for capacity building, knowledge sharing, production of scientific excellence, and enhancing the scientific standing of marine sciences in the Faroe Islands and Denmark. Final The BlueOcean project has shown that climate-oceanographic conditions (winds, currents, temperature) during the first few months of life affect the annual survival rate of the young stages of blue whiting. This fish species is very important ecologically (i. e., as a prey for larger animals and as a predator of smaller animals) in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, and it supports one of the largest commercial fisheries in the Faroe Islands and even in the entire Atlantic Ocean. The effects of climate-oceanographic conditions on survival rate are large enough that they affect population biomass and potentially also the fishery management advice (e. g., quota size recommendations) several years into the future. The new results have the potential to increase the sustainability of the population and its fishery, and have attracted interest from relevant international fishery management authorities (e. g., ICES) and the commercial fishing industry. By demonstrating that ecosystem conditions have significant impacts on population dynamics, the study also makes a scientific contribution towards international efforts to develop ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management. Many of the project findings have been discovered as part of a dedicated, completed Ph.D. project jointly supervised by scientists from the BlueOcean partner institutes (Faroe Marine Research Institute and the National Institute for Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark; DTU Aqua, coordinator). Project status: Liðug Project output: On 30 January 2026, Constanza Cappelli successfully defended her PhD work at DTU. 1. Scientific articles, books, thesis etc. Cappelli, C., Hátún, H., Jacobsen, J. A., Visser, A. W., Nielsen, A., Berg, C. W., Ferreira, A. S. A., and MacKenzie, B. R. (2025). Ocean-climate conditions one year prior to spawning drive recruitment success of blue whiting. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 82, fsaf102. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsaf102 Cappelli, C., Hátún, H., Jacobsen, J. A., Visser, A. W., Hansen, F. T., Mortensen, J. B., Accornero, S., Rodrigues, F., and MacKenzie, B. R. (2026). Circulation-driven dispersal and retention affect blue whiting recruitment dynamics in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. Front. Mar. Sci. 13, 1764145. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2026.1764145 Cappelli, C. (2025). Physical processes affecting stock dynamics of blue whiting in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. PhD thesis, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), National Institute of Aquatic Resources (DTU Aqua), Section for Oceans and Arctic, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark. BlueOcean is presented as a collaborative project on the FAMRI homepage See also orbit.dtu.dk here Storage and access rights to collected data Data on blue whiting recruitment is available at ICES.dk and is published every year in the ICES WGWIDE report and stored in the ICES library The data underlying the published articles are available in the following open-access GitHub repositories: 1) ICES JMS 2) Frontiers << Back |
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