Project Summary
David Mountain, Dave Townsend, Jack Green, and Peter
Berrien
U.S. GLOBEC: Broad-Scale Ichthyoplankton,
Hydrography and Nutrient Studies on Georges Bank
This proposal represents a continuation of the broad-scale survey to
1999, the final field year of the program, and addresses three
components of the survey: hydrography, nutrients and chlorophyll, and
the larval fish populations; as well as the continued analysis of the
data collected on the broad-scale survey in 1995 - 1998. The
hydrographic data will document the evolution of water column
conditions during the larval life stages, and provide an index of
interannual variability in the environmental conditions over the life
of the program. The nutrient and chlorophyll studies will provide
data to test ideas about the overall limiting effect that nitrogen
exerts on the higher trophic level productivity on Georges Bank. The
larval sampling will measure the distribution and abundance of eggs
and larvae of cod and haddock, from which estimates of production and
mortality rates will be made for these populations. The spatial and
temporal distribution of the mortality rates will be compared to the
distributions of predators, prey and physical forcing to determine
trophic and environmental factors associated with mortality.