THE AMERICAN LOBSTER SETTLEMENT INDEX

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0226990
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2011
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2016
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF MAINE
(N/A)
ORONO,ME 04469

Performing Department
School of Marine Sciences

Non Technical Summary
The American lobster is the most valuable single-species fishery in New England and Atlantic Canada, valued at approximately US$1 billion (FAO 2009). The collapse of this fishery would be catastrophic to Maine's coastal economy and change the face of its unique working waterfront. The American Lobster Settlement Index (ALSI) is an annual monitoring program that quantifies the pulse of newly settled lobsters that repopulate rocky coastal nursery grounds in New England and Atlantic Canada. Quantifying this segment of the life history is especially valuable because it is the only time when one can identify with certainty the strength of an individual year class. Initiated in 1989, the survey has expanded from a few sampling sites in coastal Maine to encompass more than 100 sites in other lobster-producing regions of the Northeast United States and Atlantic Canada (e.g., Incze et al. 1997, Incze et al. 2010). Supported by state and provincial marine resource agencies, monitoring is conducted annually at the end of the late summer-early autumn postlarval settlement season. ALSI has achieved several milestones in recent years. It has been increasingly recognized to be a valuable indicator of the health of the lobster resource in the US and Atlantic Canada (ASMFC 2009). In May of 2010 the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission raised the index to the status of a Reference Point in the US Lobster Stock Assessment. The index has been instrumental in ground-truthing oceanographic larval transport and settlement models developed for the Gulf of Maine (Xue et al. 2008, Incze et al. 2010). It is a useful predictor of spatial and temporal patterns in coastal New England's lobster harvest. Most recently, as a result of new initiatives, vessel-deployed passive collectors - trays of rocks mimicking the nursery habitat - have been added as a monitoring tool, opening a new window on settlement patterns in locations inaccessible to the long-standing diver-based sampling. Over the past 20 years the PI has spearheaded the effort to build a regional collaborative among US and Canadian participants. ALSI and associated lobster research has comprised a large component of the PI's overall research program in benthic ecology and fisheries. This proposal aims to have the following outcomes and impacts: (1) enhance the efficiency of ALSI data compilation from all regions, (2) improve access to the collective data base and its products, and (3) address key research questions over the subsequent years to evaluate the forecasting power of the index. To make the best use of this rich data set, it must be automated and accessible. As fishery managers and scientists, the ALSI collaborators agree that having a centralized, accessible data base is a critical first step to meeting the needs of future stock assessment, forecasting and research in an efficient and comprehensive way. Once the data base is in place, it will facilitate several priority data analysis projects that will serve the interests of the entire collaborative.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
605	0811	1060	20%
605	0811	1070	20%
605	0819	1060	10%
605	0819	1070	10%
605	0899	1060	10%
605	0899	1070	10%
605	3199	1060	10%
605	3199	1070	10%

Knowledge Area
605 - Natural Resource and Environmental Economics;

Subject Of Investigation
3199 - Invertebrates, general/other; 0899 - Wildlife and natural fisheries, general/other; 0819 - Natural fisheries, other; 0811 - Shellfish;

Field Of Science
1060 - Biology (whole systems); 1070 - Ecology;

Keywords

fisheries

american lobster

forecasting

larval settlement

fisheries oceanography

prediction

population dynamics

Goals / Objectives
The broad goal of this research is to develop predictive tools for trends in the abundance of the American lobster through a mechanistic understanding of the processes that influence population dynamics. This goal encompasses the objectives stated below, as well as those to be addressed through other sources of support. The following objectives will be possible to achieve with matching support for the PI's technician which is being requested from the ALSI collaborative, the UMaine Faculty Research Fund and NSF. Decisions on that support will be forthcoming in 2011 and 2012. To undertake the proposed research and reporting objectives it will be necessary in the first year to construct a data-base management system, a Web portal for accessibility, and specific research questions that utilize the data base. This will involve working with the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP) to establish a data submission procedure, access rules, and construct a dedicated Website for the American Lobster Settlement Index to serve users of the data base. Support for other related objectives, such as those outlined in section II, that require more substantial field logistics and personnel, is being requested from other funding agencies. Objective 1 (Years 1-2): Construct a data-base management system, Web portal, define data submission procedures, and a set of annual report products including charts, maps and tables to be posted on the Website and disseminated to stakeholders in annual reports. Objective 2 (Year 3): Explore the data base to identify region-specific size ranges for age classes from size-frequency distributions, and evaluate the numerical fate cohorts over first years of benthic life. Objective 3 (Year 4): Test the forecasting power of the settlement index by correlating the index with abundance indices for fishery recruits from fishery-independent surveys using appropriate time lags. Objective 4 (Year 5): Calibrate suction sampling and passive collector-based estimates of abundance by assessing sampling biases inherent to each tool. Short-term Outcome: Establish the data base management system, web portal and reporting products to facilitate subsequent research, forecasting, and stock assessment objectives. Medium-term Outcome: Evaluate the predictive value of the lobster settlement index for time trends in fishery recruitment by region. Long-term Outcome: ALSI becomes an established tool in forecasting and stock assessment. Data on associated species become widely used as a biodiversity monitoring tool. Monitoring of lobsters and associated species by this method become important indicators of changes in species distributions with climate change.

Project Methods
Objective 1 - Data-base management system, Web portal, and Annual report products (Years 1-2): During the first year of the project it is essential that we define data submission procedures and access rules for participants, and construct a dedicated Web portal. The PI has begun working with the ACCSP to centralize the data base, and automate the compilation and reporting of data from the contributing states and provinces. The website will be the portal for data submission and communicating updates. Objective 2 - Evaluate cohort fate over first years (Year 3): One of the great benefits of the settlement time series is the information on the abundance of the earliest benthic lobster life stages. This objective will involve testing two hypotheses: H1: Size ranges for age classes are the same for all regions; and H2: Young-of-year abundance is an accurate predictor of age 1Yr, 2Yr and 3 Yr age classes in the nurseries. The aim of this analysis will be to evaluate for each region the functional relationship between YoY and subsequent ages with the appropriate time lag. This can provide important information on early post-settlement survival and emigration from nurseries. Objective 3 - Forecasting fishery recruitment & links to other fishery independent surveys (Year 4): One of the central and long-standing goals of the collaborative has been to evaluate whether the settlement index is a useful predictor of time trends in fishery recruitment as measured by fishery-independent trawl surveys, for example. There are solid examples from Maine (Steneck and Wilson 2001, Wahle unpublished) and Rhode Island (Fig. 3; Wahle et al. 2009a) that forecasting fishery recruitment from the settlement index is possible, but still at an early stage of development. Because of strong regional differences in the strength of post-settlement processes, however, such as growth and natural mortality, forecasting will likely need to be customized to the regional scale. The basic approach is to test for hypothesized linear or non-linear relationships between YoY abundance from the settlement index and the abundance of fishery recruits in trawl surveys from the same area. For many regions the time series is now long enough to make such an evaluation, but no comprehensive evaluation has yet been undertaken for all regions. Objective 4 - Evaluate suction sampler -collector sampling biases for lobsters and associated species (Year 5): Passive postlarval collectors are now widely used in addition to, or as an alternative to suction sampling, where diver based sampling is unsafe or impractical. Preliminary analyses of side-by-side comparisons of collectors and suction sampling suggest that lobster densities are quite comparable, although there may be subtle differences in size specific selectivity. The inherent biases of the two methods are important to quantify if both methods will be used in monitoring.

Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include the ALSI partnership (including participating New England states and Canadian provinces). We hold annual meetings of the partners. Stock assessment scientists at NOAA Fisheries, Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The lobster industry in Canada and the US, which we reach via presentations at the Maine Fishermen's forum and through industry publications Legislators - I have given testimony at public hearing of the Maine Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources, in-person conversations with legislators at the state (Rep. M. Devin) and federal (Sen. King) level. General public via print and on-line media (AP, and CBC interviews with me and my students) Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Support for training and professional development of students and technicians toward the objectives of this project came entirely from outside sources, such as NSF, NOAA, Maine Sea Grant, and Maine Department of Marine Resources. These funds supported a full time Research Associate position held by Charlene Bergeron, Phoebe Jekielek, Steven Allen at different times. The project engaged School of Marine Science graduate students, Noah Oppenheim, Amalia Harrington, and Jesica Waller on Graduate Research Assistantships. SMS undergraduates, Melissa Hoffman, and Zach Topor. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Our work has been disseminated to several important target audiences during the project. The following mostly repeats our last progress report. The ALSI password-protected data portal, https://safis.accsp.org:8443/safis_prod/f?p=110:LOGIN:::::: is our data "hub"hosted by the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program in Washington, DC., is now serving the ALSI participants and collaborators in the US and Canada to upload regional data, and to produce customized data summaries and reports. ALSI data summaries and forecasts were also disseminated to State and Federal Fishery Managers at the participating state marine resource agencies, National Marine Fisheries Service, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In-person meetings have been held with Maine's Commissioner of Marine Resources and his Bureau Director regarding the implications of our forecast which are being communicated to the Governor. The ALSI public access website (http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/current-projects/american-lobster-settlement-index/) continues to provide updates of the regional surveys and time series. Another public access website is the Gulf of Maine Council's EcoSystem Reporting tool http://www2.gulfofmaine.org/esip/reporting/gmap2.php provides an interface to generate regional time series of ALSI data, and also hosts the ALSI Factsheet (below). The ALSI FactSheet http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/files/2015/09/ALSI-Factsheet.pdf has been developed and is available on line and in hard copy for distribution at conferences, workshops and industry meetings. Results are also communicated to the fishing industry through news outlets such as Commercial Fisheries News (May 2015), presentations at the Maine Fishermen's Forum (March 2015), and Lobstermen's Town Meeting (April 2015, St. John, NB). Perhaps the most thorough coverage by the new media of our work was done by Quartz News http://qz.com/506376/lobsters-2/. Additional media coverage includes occasional tangential references to it in Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, NBC, CBC and FoxsNews affiliates WCSH Portland and WFVX Bangor. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Summarized by objective for the entire project: Objective 1 - Construct ALSI data-base management system and Web portal: Early in the project we worked with the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program to establish the database and portal. Over subsequent years, ALSI partners learned how to upload data to the portal and to use reporting tools. The portal now routinely takes annual uploads of data from the partners and is used for reporting purposes. Objective 2- Identify region-specific size ranges for age classes: This objective has been addressed and a draft report is in the revision stage. We anticipate disseminating this report to the ALSI partners during the spring of 2017 for their feedback. Objective 3 - Test the forecasting power of the settlement index for trends in the lobster fishery: This was a key objective of the project. It became the Masters thesis project of graduate student, Noah Oppenheim, in the Dual Marine biology / Policy program in the School of Marine Sciences. We evaluated the forecasting power of the settlement index at 13 study areas from Rhode Island to New Brunswick and found statistically significant forecasting power at 11 of them. Noah defended his degree in January 2016, and a manuscript is in preparation for publication. Results have been also disseminated to the industry and fishery managers through the Maine Fishermen's Forum and Industry publications, factsheets. The research has also been presented at national and international scientific conferences. Objective 4 - Calibrate suction sampling and passive collector-based estimates of abundance: This objective was addressed early in the project and the analysis was published in the following article: Wahle, R.A., C. Bergeron, J. Tremblay, C. Wilson, V. Burdett-Coutts, M. Comeau, R. Rochette, P. Lawton, R. Glenn, M. Gibson. 2013. The geography and bathymetry of American lobster benthic recruitment as measured by diver-based suction sampling and passive collectors. Marine Biology Research 9: 42-58. Refinements to our understanding of the differences in the two methods will continued to be made. In conclusion we have met the short-, medium- and long-term outcomes of the project as set forth in our original proposal. ALSI has become an established tool in lobster stock assessment and forecasting. Its validity as a predictive tool will continually be tested. Results of the analyses will be published over the coming year. In addition, data within the database on associated species, such as crabs and fishes, are also becoming widely used as indicators of changes in species distributions in a changing climate.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Waller,J.D., R.A. Wahle,H. McVeigh,D.M. Fields. 2016. Linking rising pCO2 and temperature to the larval development and physiology of the American lobster (Homarus americanus). ICES Journal of Marine Science doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsw154
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Bayer, S.R., R.A. Wahle, P.A. Jumars, D.C. Brady. 2016. Measuring scallop fertilization success in the field: chamber design and tests. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 551: 141154. doi: 10.3354/meps11684 (NOTE that while this paper is not directly related to the current project, it did make extensive use of Darling Marine Center field station facilities. I therefore felt it important to include it here. [Please advise]
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2017 Citation: Hunt, H., R.A. Wahle, R. Rochette, M. Comeau, J. Tremblay. In press. Spatial patterns of richness and abundance of benthic decapod crustaceans and fishes in the northwest Atlantic as measured by vessel-deployed cobble-filled collectors. Mar. Biol. Research.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Submitted Year Published: 2017 Citation: Wahle, R.A., A. Linnane, A. Harrington. submitted. Lobster Fisheries. In: M. Thiel and G. Lovrich, The natural history of the Crustacea. Vol. 5. Fisheries and Aquaculture. Oxford University Press. In review.

Progress 10/01/14 to 09/30/15

Outputs
Target Audience: Nothing Reported Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Support for training and professional development of students and technicians toward the objectives of this project came entirely from outside sources, such as NSF, NOAA, Maine Sea Grant, and Maine Department of Marine Resources. These funds supported a full time Research Associate, Steven Allen, SMS Dual Degree Masters student, Noah Oppenheim, and SMS undergraduate, Melissa Hoffman. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our work has been disseminated to several important target audiences during the reporting period. The ALSI password-protected data portal, https://safis.accsp.org:8443/safis_prod/f?p=110:LOGIN:::::: is our data "hub"hosted by the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program in Washington, DC., is now serving the ALSI participants and collaborators in the US and Canada to upload regional data, and to produce customized data summaries and reports. ALSI data summarize and forecasts were also disseminated to State and Federal Fishery Managers at the participating state marine resource agencies, National Marine Fisheries Service, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In-person meetings have been held with Maine's Commissioner of Marine Resources and his Bureau Director regarding the implications of our forecast which are being communicated to the Governor. The ALSI public access website (http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/current-projects/american-lobster-settlement-index/) continues to provide updates of the regional surveys and time series. Another public access website is the Gulf of Maine Council's EcoSystem Reporting tool http://www2.gulfofmaine.org/esip/reporting/gmap2.php provides an interface to generate regional time series of ALSI data, and also hosts the ALSI Factsheet (below). The ALSI FactSheet http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/files/2015/09/ALSI-Factsheet.pdf has been developed and is available on line and in hard copy for distribution at conferences, workshops and industry meetings. Results are also communicated to the fishing industry through news outlets such as Commercial Fisheries News (May 2015), presentations at the Maine Fishermen's Forum (March 2015), and Lobstermen's Town Meeting (April 2015, St. John, NB). Perhaps the most thorough coverage by the new media of our work was done by Quartz News http://qz.com/506376/lobsters-2/. Additional media coverage includes occasional tangential references to it in Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, NBC and FoxsNews affiliates WCSH Portland and WFVX Bangor. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Update and make improvements to the web portal (established under Objective 1) Refinements and dissemination to ALSI based fishery forecasts (Objective 3). Initiate work on Objective 4 - Calibrate suction sampling and passive collector-based estimates of abundance by assessing sampling biases inherent to each tool.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period we continued to make improvements and upload new data to the American Lobster Settlement Index (ALSI) web portal (objective 1) initiated in year 1. We also initiated work on Objective 4 testing the forecasting power of the settlement index for trends in the lobster fishery. We have made considerable progress on this objective. Forecasting model development and validation is mostly completed and is being communicated to stakeholders in the region. It is the thesis topic of graduate student, Noah Oppenheim, who is on track to complete his thesis in January 2016.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Wahle, R.A., L. Dellinger, S. Olszewski, P. Jekielek. 2015. Lobster nurseries of southern New England recede in the face of climate change. ICES Journal of Marine Science. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsv093.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Gledhill, D.K., M.M. White, J. Salisbury, H. Thomas, I. Mlsna, M. Liebman, B. Mook, J. Grear, A.C. Candelmo, R.C. Chambers, C.J. Gobler, C.W. Hunt, A.L. King, N.N. Price, S. Signorini, E. Stancioff, C. Stymiest, R.A. Wahle, J.D. Waller, N.D. Rebuck, Z.A. Wang, T.L. Capson, J. R. Morrison, S. Cooley, S.Doney. 2015. Ocean acidification off New England and Nova Scotia. Oceanography 28(2):182197, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.41.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: ALSI Factsheet (2015) Published by Maine Sea Grant. http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/files/2015/09/ALSI-Factsheet.pdf
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: ALSI public access website: http://umaine.edu/wahlelab/current-projects/american-lobster-settlement-index/

Progress 10/01/13 to 09/30/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Several important target audiences were reached during the reporting period. ALSI (American Lobster Settlement Index) Participants - During the reporting period the interactive ALSI web portal went live. The portal is hosted by the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program in Washington, DC.It is nowserving the ALSI participants and collaborators toupload their region's data, and to produce costumizeddata summaries and reports. ALSI results were the focus of a statewide series of meetings with the lobster industry conducted by Maine's Commissioner of Marine Resourcesduirng the spring of 2014todiscuss the implications of a severe downturn in the settlement index for the fishery. As a result, news media, television, newspaper and web carried various versions of the story to the wider public. They included: Bangor Daily News, Portland Herald, Commercial Fisheries News, Accuweather.com,NBC and Fox News affiliates WCSH Portland andWFVX Bangor, among others. Changes/Problems: In Sept 2014 the annual project allocation from MAFESwas reducedfrom $3000 to $2000. Other than securing significant funding for this project from NOAA, NSF and Sea Grant, there are no other major changes to the approach or schedule. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The $3000 recieved during the reporting periodfrom this MAFES fundhelpedsupporttwo undergraduate interns, one a UMaine Marine Science major, Jacqueline Rosa; the other a recent Williams College graduate, Katie Newcomer,during the summer of 2014. Over the past year, I have been successful insecuring technician and graduate student suppport from NOAA's Fisheries and the Environment (FATE) program, the NSF Coastal SEES Program (led by Andy Pershing), andMaine Sea Grant to meet the objectives of this project. Graduate student: Noah Oppenheim, in SMS Dual Degree masters program. During the reporting period supported by SMS Research Assistantship and NSF Coastal SEES Research Associate: Phoebe Jekielek until Feb 2014, replaced bySteven Allen in June 2014 to present, supported by NOAA-FATE and Sea Grant durng the reporting period. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The ALSI web portal is probably the most significant way of disseminating the entire data to the partners. The annual 2-page "Update 2013" serves as a press release to stake holders and interested media (see above). The peer reviewed publications cited above reach our scientific audience. Individual state agencies use the data set for their own purposes. For example, Maine DMR commissioner held a series of meeting with the fishing industry to advise them implications of the recenttrends in settlement. This led to a great deal of interest from the popular press as indicated above. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Weplan to stay the course. Objective 1: We have improvements to make on the data submission and reporting on the ALSI web portal. And participants need to complete the uploading of historic data for their regions. Objectives 2-4: Graduate student and technician supported by NOAA FATE, Sea Grant and NSFCoastal SEES will continue to advance on these 3 objectives in parallel over the course of the coming year.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: The ALSI data-base management system has been constructed with ACCSPand the web portal went live duringFeb 2014. Going live enabled ALSI participants in New England and Atlantic Canada to start uploading the2013 data, which was completed within a few weeks. Some participants have completed submission of their historical data. Those with the longest time series, some going as far back as1989,willcontinue into 2015. Going live also meant that participants could start taking advantage of the portal's reporting capabilities. We can now produce customized reports both in graphicand spreadsheet format. Additional development of the submission and reporting tools is under way. Objectives 2-4: We are also making progress on the remaining 3 objectives in parallel efforts. Withnew grants fromNOAA-Fisheries and the Environment (FATE), and an NSF-Coastal SEES Program, my technician, Steve Allen, and graduate student, Noah Oppenheim, are working on the tasks related to these 3 objectives. We therefore have preliminary results on these 3 objectives. The early output of the forecasting model (objective 1)was what Maine DMR Commissioner used in his industry meetings during the spring of 2014.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Wahle, R. + participants. 2014. ALSI Update 2013. [this is the annual 2-page brief disseminated to ALSI participants, stake holders, and media; not a peer reviewed publication]
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wahle, R.A., C. Bergeron, J. Tremblay, C. Wilson, V. Burdett-Coutts, M. Comeau, R. Rochette, P. Lawton, R. Glenn, M. Gibson. 2013. The geography and bathymetry of American lobster benthic recruitment as measured by diver-based suction sampling and passive collectors. Marine Biology Research 9: 42-58
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Steneck, R.S. and R.A. Wahle. 2013. The American lobster dynamics in a brave new ocean. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 70: 1612-1624, 10.1139/cjfas-2013-0094
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Burdett-Coutts, V., R.A. Wahle, R. Rochette, P. Snelgrove. 2014. Spatial linkages between settling young-of-year and older juvenile lobsters. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 499: 143155. doi: 10.3354/meps10625

Progress 10/01/12 to 09/30/13

Outputs
Target Audience: The primary target audience for the completion of the ALSI data base and web portal development are the ALSI partners who will be using the portal the most. Specifically, they are Carl Wilson, Maine Department of Marine Resources, Boothbay Harbor, ME; Mark Gibson, Rhode Island Division of Fish & Wildlife, Jamestown, RI; Robert Glenn, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, New Bedford, MA; Peter Lawton, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, NB; Julien Gaudette, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, NB; John Tremblay, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford, NS; Michel Comeau, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Moncton, NB; andRemy Rochette, University of New Brunswick, St. John, NB. We also prepare an annual "ALSI Update" that is disseminated by email to the partners, selected media,and posted onthe Wahle Lab website. The 2-page Update is written in lay terms and gives a brief overview of the year'shighlights. Changes/Problems: No major changes. There have been some minordelays in the development of the ALSI web portal under objective 1. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Graduate Student, Noah Oppenheim, has been working on this project through a Sea Grant Dual Degree Scholarship. Research Associate, Phoebe Jekielek, joined the Wahle lab in November 2012 to assist with the ALSI web portal development. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results of web portal development have been disseminated hrough webinars with ALSI participants. Results of the ALSI monitoring and research itself have been disseminated through peer reviewed papers, and our annual "ALSI Update" which goes to various stakeholders and the media. Commercial Fisheries News ran a story on ALSI in their June 2013 issue. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Testing of the ALSI Web portal and training of participantsis nearly complete and the portal is slated to go livein January 2014. This will complete Objective 1 of the project. In the coming year we will address Objective 2, our first research objective that makes use of the ALSI data base. Under this objective we will use statistical approaches to evaluate the short term forecasting power of the settlement index over a single year from the time lobsters settle to the sea bed into the next year.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have made significant progress on our project Objective 1 which was planned to span the first two years of the project. This objective aimed to construct the ALSI data-base management system, Web portal, define data submission procedures, and a set of annual report products including charts, maps and tables to be posted on the Website and disseminated to stakeholders in annual reports The ALSI data base and web portal have been under construction for the past two years and as of the end of this reporting period (9/30/13) was nearly ready to go live. Historical data from the ALSI partners have been uploaded to the data base through the portal. We have also worked with ACCSP to develop a suite of report products that can be generated and customized by users interactively.We have conducted webinars with the ALSI participants on how to use these interactive tools for uploading data and to generate reports. The web portal will go "live" in January 2014.

Publications

• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wahle, R.A., K. Castro, O. Tully, S. Cobb. 2013. Chapter 4: Homarus. In: B. Phillips (ed.) Lobsters: Biology, Management, Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2nd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Phillips, B., R. Wahle, R. Ward. 2013. Chapter 1: Lobsters as part of marine ecosystems. In: B. Phillips (ed.) Lobsters: Biology, Management, Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2nd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Caputi, N., S. Frusher, R. Wahle. 2013. Chapter 9: Impacts of climate change. In: B. Phillips (ed.) Lobsters: Biology, Management, Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2nd edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wahle, R. + participants. 2013. ALSI Update 2012.

Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: Objective 1 for Years 1-2 was to construct a data-base management system, Web portal, define data submission procedures, and a set of annual report products including charts, maps and tables to be posted on the Website and disseminated to stakeholders in annual reports. We have completed the first part of that objective by working closely with the American Lobster Settlement Index (ALSI) collaborators and the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP) in Washington, DC, to develop the Web portal and data submission procedures. This includes the option to enter data manually on-line through the portal or by uploading an Excel data file that is formatted according to a prescribed standard. We have also held two of three planned Webex webinars with the ALSI collaborative to train participants in the data submission process. These webinars have provided us additional feedback from the collaborators that we will use to fine tune the data submission process. In the coming months we will begin to address the second part of this objective, namely to build reporting products: a set of tables and graphs useful to the collaborative that will be updated annually. We have also just begun to probe Objective 2, by conducting some preliminary analyses of regional lobster size frequency distributions from the existing data base. PARTICIPANTS: The following investigators and their organizations are partners in the project; they coordinate the annual field monitoring conducted in their respective regions. They and their staff have participated in the ACCSP data submission training. Carl Wilson, Maine Department of Marine Resources, Boothbay Harbor, ME Mark Gibson, Rhode Island Division of Fish & Wildlife, Jamestown, RI Robert Glenn, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, New Bedford, MA Peter Lawton, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, NB Julien Gaudette, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, NB John Tremblay, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Bedford, NS Michel Comeau, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Moncton, NB Remy Rochette, University of New Brunswick, St. John, NB The ALSI collaborative provides numerous training opportunities in the US and Canada. The following recent graduate degrees used the ALSI data base in different ways. Charlene Bergeron, MSc 2011. UMaine. School of Marine Sciences. Thesis used the ALSI data base in developing regional growth models for the American lobster. Victoria Burdett-Coutts, MSc 2010. Memorial University, Newfoundland. Thesis used the ALSI data base to evaluate spatial correlations in settlement. Noah Oppenheim, Dual Degree Marine Science and Policy. In progress. University of Maine. The Marine Science chapter will focus on Objective 4 of this project - evaluating the predictive power of the lobster settlement index for time trends in the fishery. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audience for this work encompasses fishery managers and scientists, policy makers, the fishing industry and educators. Efforts to centralize the ALSI database at a UMaine-based Weblink, facilitates access and research analysis using the products of this regional collaboration. It also serves to heighten the visibility of UMaine and its School of Marine Sciences. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: There have been no major changes in the objectives or approach of this project to date.

Impacts
The most important impact of completing objective 1 is to have what to our knowledge is the first standardized US-Canada time series database on lobster early life stages. The "change in action" that this provides is that the Web portal puts the entire 24-year data set at the finger tips of the collaborative. This, in turn, should facilitate retrospective analyses of the data that will result in a "change in knowledge." That knowledge impact is not limited to the longer-term objectives (2-5) of the present project. ALSI participants will mine the data set to address questions of their own.

Publications

• Bergeron, C., R.A. Wahle, Y. Chen, P. Lawton. 2011. Research on lobster age-size relationships: Developing regionally specified growth models from meta-analysis of existing data. Final Project Report. Maine Department of Marine Resources Lobster Research Education and Marketing Board.
• Glenn, R + 8 coauthors including R. Wahle. 2011. Examining settlement dynamics of postlarval American lobster (Homarus americanus), in Lobster Management Area 2. Final Report. Southern New England Collaborative Research Initiative. NOAA Grant Number NA08NMF4720595
• Pershing, A.J., R.A. Wahle, P.C. Meyers, P. Lawton. 2012. Large-scale coherence in New England lobster settlement associated with regional weather. Fisheries Oceanography 21: 348-362. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2419.2012.00629.x
• Wahle, R., D. Tshudy, J.S. Cobb, J. Factor, M. Jaini*. 2012. Astacidea (Marine Lobsters). In, F. R. Schram & J. C. von Vaupel Klein (eds.), Treatise on Zoology: Crustacea Decapoda, Vol. 9B (66) pp 3-108. Brill, Leiden
• Wahle, R. A., J. S. Cobb, L. S. Incze, P. Lawton, M. Gibson, R. Glenn, C. Wilson, J. Tremblay. 2011. The American lobster settlement index at 20 years: Looking back - looking ahead. J. Mar. Biol. Assn. India. 52:180-188.
• Wahle, R.A., C. Bergeron, J. Tremblay, C. Wilson, V. Burdett-Coutts, M. Comeau, R. Rochette, P. Lawton, R. Glenn, M. Gibson. 2012. The geography and bathymetry of American lobster benthic recruitment as measured by diver-based suction sampling and passive collectors. Marine Biology Research 9: 42-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17451000.2012.727428