Richard Wahle
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
West Boothbay Harbor, ME 04575
207.633.9600
rwahle@bigelow.org
http://www.bigelow.org/pi/Wahle.html
The American lobster is the most economically important single-species fishery in the Gulf of Maine and New England. The lobster fishery reported record harvests during the 1990s that were not predicted by current models. Yet, the resource is officially assessed as overfished. At the heart of debates over the status of the fishery is a poor understanding of processes that influence recruitment to harvestable adult stocks. Findings from this study will contribute to a growing regional database on lobster demography that can be used to assess the current health of the fishery and to developing predictive models that could help evaluate possible impacts of different environmental conditions and harvesting scenarios on the sustainability of the resource.
Associated Publications
Wahle, R. A., 2003, Revealing Stock-recruitment Relationships in Lobsters and Crabs: Is Experimental Ecology the Key?, Fisheries Research, 65:3-32.
Wahle, R. A., O. Tully, and V. O'Donovan, 2001, Environmentally Mediated Crowding Effects on Growth, Survival, and Metabolic Rate of Juvenile American Lobsters, Marine and Freshwater Research, 52:1157-1166.
For a full list of publications associated with research projects, please visit our Journal Repints page.