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Understanding Atlantic Sea Scallops And Ocean Acidification

How will sea scallops and the fishing communities that rely on them fare as the ocean changes?

New England/Mid-Atlantic

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Two vessels sit at a dock next to each other. One is called the Navigator and has a navy blue hull, the other is called the Pursuit and has a cobalt blue hull.
Scallop fishing vessels in Seaford VA. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Dvora Hart

Overview

Project Goals

  1. Understand the social and ecological vulnerability of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery to projected ocean chemistry changes.
  2. Collaboratively produce recommendations to help sea scallop fishermen and fishing communities adapt to changing ocean conditions.

Project Description

This multidisciplinary, multi-institution project integrates social and natural science research. It will inform management policies for the Northeast sea scallop fishery, which is facing ocean acidification.

The Atlantic sea scallop fishery is the second-most valuable single-species fishery in the United States. It is the most valuable wild scallop fishery in the world. However, sea scallops may be vulnerable to forecasted changes in ocean chemistry. The future of both the sea scallop fishery and the communities that rely on it will depend on their ability to adapt to climate change and ocean acidification (OA). To find ways to adapt to change and manage for it, we need to understand not only how dependent communities are on sea scallops, but also the well-being and sustainability of the fishery. The research team will collaborate with sea scallop fishermen, related industry stakeholders, and managers to develop recommendations. The recommendations will help us navigate changes in the fishery resulting from projected ocean acidification and climate change in the Northeast United States.

Study Methods

Overview

Image
Three juvenile sea scallops.
Juvenile Atlantic sea scallops
Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Dvora Hart
  • Organize and facilitate annual workshops between scientific partners and fishing communities. The workshops will feature discussions of project goals, approaches, and preliminary and final results from models, and address fishing industry concerns, which will be incorporated into management recommendations.
  • Conduct social-ecological system vulnerability assessment to measure well-being, sustainability, vulnerability, and resilience of the sea scallop industry to climate warming and OA.
  • Project sea scallop abundance and productivity under future conditions by scaling up results from biological sensitivity experiments with sea scallops and incorporating these results into regional ocean models.
  • Generate spatially-explicit regional projection of changes relative to sea scallop fishing zones to inform management and help with community resilience.

Social Science Research

Social science researchers will develop indicators for sea scallop dependent fishing communities. They will use the NOAA Fisheries Community Social Vulnerability Indicators and community-level analysis of species vulnerability to climate change and catch composition diversity. They will also analyze the regulatory history of the Atlantic sea scallop fishery since the first management plan was implemented in 1982 to the present day, and identify factors that have contributed to current management outcomes. Analyzing the recent history of the fishery will help identify factors associated with differential outcomes in sea scallop-dependent communities.

Sea Scallop Biology and Computer Modeling 

Image
Five small scallops in an experimental system, each individual scallop is in a long and narrow chamber filled with seawater.
Juvenile sea scallops in a biodeposition experiment.
Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Mark Dixon

The natural science portion of this project will assess regional vulnerability of sea scallops to past and future projected ocean changes. Lab-based sensitivity experiments with individual scallops will be scaled up to assess population-level effects of stressors. Researchers will investigate where and when different sea scallop life stages are most vulnerable. Vulnerability is defined as the time of exposure to ocean acidification (OA) multiplied by the sensitivity of the life stage.

To pinpoint when and where sea scallops are most vulnerable, scientists will use a physical ocean circulation model with biogeochemical fields. They will identify local effects of OA and climate change on sea scallops within existing fishing zones that are likely to affect the fishery with potential changes in recruitment, growth rate, and/or time to harvest. They will determine whether sea scallop populations are likely to migrate spatially in response to changing ocean conditions. Results will be incorporated into a forecast that will estimate change in sea scallop catch.

The Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, a project partner, has created several research fleets in partnership with commercial fishermen to collect oceanographic and biological data. Oceanographic data collected from the CFRF/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Shelf Oceanographic Research Fleet and CFRF Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Fleets will be used to evaluate the model simulations.

Researchers will use a dynamic energy budget model to consider environmental, behavioral, and physiological factors when projecting sea scallop response to OA. These model projections will help determine whether the time needed to grow to harvestable size will change in fishing zones under different OA and climate scenarios. The results will help us understand which physiological processes are most impacted by OA, and connect regional OA dynamics to sea scallop population-level changes.

Stakeholder Workshops

The project team is collaborating with sea scallop fishermen, industry stakeholders, and managers through a series of stakeholder workshops. They will make management recommendations based on feedback from the workshops and their findings. Bringing social and natural science together, researchers will assess the fishery’s current reliance on environmental information for decision-making and the role of regional ocean simulations. Collective goal setting with industry stakeholders will help plan for the resilient future of the sea scallop fishery. We are holding three workshops in 2025:

  • New Bedford, Massachusetts: March 24, 2025 at New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (10:00 AM-12:00 PM)
  • Gloucester Point, Virginia: March 27, 2025 at Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Davis Hall Room 201 (9:00 AM-11:00 AM)
  • Barnegat Light, New Jersey: March 28, 2025 at Barnegat Light Court Meeting Room (9:00 AM-11:00 AM)

We held three hybrid workshops for industry members during winter 2024: 

  • New Bedford, Massachusetts: March 19, 2024 at New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (11:00 AM-1:00 PM)
  • Newport News, Virginia: March 21, 2024 at King Lincoln Park Meeting Room (9:00-11:00 AM)
  • Barnegat Light, New Jersey: March 22, 2024 at Barnegat Light Court Meeting Room (9:30-11:30 AM) 

We held three hybrid workshops for industry members during winter 2023: 

  • Newport News, Virginia: February 13, 2023 at King Lincoln Park Meeting Room (9:00-11:00 AM)
  • Barnegat Light, New Jersey: February 14, 2023 at Barnegat Light Court Meeting Room (10:30-12:30 PM)
  • New Bedford, Massachusetts: March 8, 2023 at New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (9:00-11:00 AM)

We also held three industry workshops in fall 2021:

  • New Bedford, Massachusetts: October 5, 2021 at Whaling City Seafood Auction
  • Point Judith, Rhode Island: October 21, 2021 at Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation
  • Barnegat Light, New Jersey: November 5, 2021 at Viking Village

If you are interested in information about the workshops, please contact Susan Inglis at singlis@cfrfoundation.org

Using Experimental Results

  • Results will be used to generate a projection of changes to fishing zones used as spatial rotational management areas considering both OA and warming. The projection will rely on modeling changes to sea scallop growth, reproduction, and recruitment.
  • Results will inform recommendations for management based on social and ecological data collected and collaboration with the fishing industry and communities.

Contact Information

Principal Investigators

Collaborators/Partners 

  • Dvora Hart / NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center/lead sea scallop stock assessment scientist
  • David Bethoney / Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation / executive director
  • Catherine Matassa / University of Connecticut / professor of marine biology
  • Enrique Curchitser / Rutgers University / professor of earth system modeling

Project Team

Former Contributors

  • Lisa Colburn / NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center / anthropologist (Retired)
  • Catherine Alves

Funding Sources

NOAA Ocean Acidification Program

Learn More

Last updated by Northeast Fisheries Science Center on 03/11/2025

Ocean Acidification Fishery Management Plan Climate