Jesse F. Lamb

The focus of my current research is analyzing the zooplankton diets of two commercially valuable fish species: Walleye pollock and Pacific Cod. The environmental and biological factors that influence their early life history and contribute to overwinter survival and eventual recruitment are of considerable interest. As zooplankton are the predominate diet of these fish, the availability of low caloric zooplankton versus high caloric zooplankton prey has a direct influence on growth rates and potential predator avoidance. My goal is to determine the details of interaction between trophic levels: by determining these fish taxa’s most preferred zooplankton prey and how climate change potentially impacts these zooplankton, in terms of both availability and quality.