The goal of the GLOBEC Northeast Pacific program is to gain an understanding of how variability in the physical environment, specifically changes that might result from climate change, affects populations of marine animals on the west coast of North America, specifically salmon and associated species. The PIs will formulate models spanning the individual level to the metapopulation level for two genera of interest to GLOBEC in the California Current System (CCS): (1) the two CCS salmon species identified by GLOBEC, coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha) and (2) Dungeness crab (Cancer magister), a species which covaries with salmon, is a significant prey of both species, and is subject to similar mesoscale circulation patterns. These models will link the different scales of variability and levels of ecological organization in the various retrospective, monitoring and process studies so that the effects of changes in the physical environment on populations can be projected.
