A decline of food in the Gulf of Maine could be contributing to a decline of baby lobsters.
Maine Public reported that a study by Nick Record, a computational ocean ecologist at the Bigelow Laboratory in Boothbay, shows that a tiny copepod called Calanus finmarchicus appears to be an important food for baby lobsters. The study cites a decline in recent years of baby lobsters, despite an abundance of egg-bearing lobsters, that correlates with a decline in Calanus finmarchicus.
Rick Wahle, a marine scientist at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole who has been tracking baby lobsters that settle to the seafloor off New England for 30 years, told Maine Public that the decline in baby lobsters may predict coming declines in the adult lobster harvest.
Wahle added that it’s not definite that baby lobsters are dying off due to a lack of C. finmarchicus, suggesting they might be settling in new places or that lobsters and C. finmarchicus might be under pressure from bigger predators.
Bigelow Lab’s Nick Record said shifts in the abundance of C. finmarchicus could be affecting migrations of the endangered North Atlantic right whale as well.
