Simulating environmental effects on brown shrimp production in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus) are a commercially important fishery species of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Young shrimp settle in estuarine salt marsh habitats during the juvenile phase of their life history, and processes that occur during their residency affect growth, survival, and recruitment of sub-adults to the fishery. We developed an agent based model that simulates the cumulative effects of temperature, salinity, and access to emergent marsh vegetation on juvenile brown shrimp growth and survival. Our model is spatially articulate, with three habitat types and three salinity zones it functions on an hourly time step to track growth and survival of shrimp super-individuals from recruitment into the shallow nursery habitats at 10 mm total length until they reach 70 mm and move into deeper bay water. We have compared our modeled shrimp production with various abundance and biomass data from fishery independent surveys. Preliminary analysis shows similarities in seasonal patterns, but annual variability in resource survey data appears higher than our modeled estimates. We are continuing to explore larval recruitment patterns and trophic interactions as possible interacting factors. Ultimately, we hope to use inter-annual variability in production estimates to reduce uncertainty in the current stock assessment model used by the US National Marine Fisheries Service.

To better understand and forecast brown shrimp production in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Location Of The Main Office Of The South East Fisheries Science Center

The data will be available from a public web server once an access methodology has been developed.

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Each sample was assigned a unique identification code. Field collected samples were tagged redundantly (e.g. one label inside of the collection vessel and a matching label attached to the outside of the vessel). The identifier and its associated information (e.g. date, location, habitat) was recorded on field data sheets. Once a sample arrived at the laboratory, the label remained with the sample throughout the various stages of sample processing. After data were entered into an Excel spreadsheet or similar database file, the information was printed out and compared against the field data sheets by two biologists. Corrections were made at this time and saved. The electronic file was also sorted and examined by the Lab Supervisor or other project personnel in a variety of ways to look for outliers, missing data, and other potential errors.

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The archival process is currently under development.

The data resides on a secure government network requiring multi-factor authentication for network access.