Basin-Scale Coherence in Phenology of Shrimps and Phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

Fine-Tuning Fisheries The past decade has seen a tremendous increase in our understanding of how climate anomalies affect hydrographic properties in North Atlantic Shelf ecosystems, but less about how these events impact organisms. Koeller et al. (p. 791 , see the Perspective by Greene et al. ) measured the egg incubation and hatching times of an important fisheries resource, the pink North Atlantic shrimp, at a variety of locations and compared them to the timing of the local spring phytoplankton bloom. Shrimp reproduction was determined locally by bottom-water temperatures and was not directly coupled with the spring bloom. While the local bottom temperatures and bloom timing are well-matched in general, and match egg hatching to food availability, this evolved relationship can be decoupled by interannual variability and climate change.