Production and consumption of krill in the Gulf of St. Lawrence: toward an ecosystem-based stock assessment

在过去十年中，自然资源行业对开发极有价值的磷虾资源的经济兴趣有所增长。在加拿大，对潜在的新磷虾来源的兴趣集中在评估营养品、化妆品和制药业所用的北方和北极磷虾的生化成分。该提案的主要目标是研究人类开发之前圣劳伦斯系统中磷虾种群的生态恢复能力。在这种情况下，加拿大磷虾种群必须继续成为主要依赖这一资源的高营养捕食者的可靠基础，这是允许任何人类开发的先决条件。因此，在作出任何关于磷虾资源开发的决定之前，必须评估磷虾作为饲料的作用。拟议的研究涉及能够评估圣劳伦斯湾生态系统中磷虾种群质量和数量的自然变异的战略重要性，鉴于磷虾根据加拿大渔业和海洋部（DFO）关于新兴渔业和饲料物种新渔业的政策成为一种潜在的新的可持续开发资源。大学和政府研究人员以及工业合作伙伴的共同努力将通过补充方法，包括实地观察，实验室实验和建模，提供对两种同域磷虾物种的生物过程和种群动态的新认识。最重要的是，通过将磷虾种群动态和生产力的IBM与物理环境的3D动态相结合，并通过在质量平衡食物网模型的框架内对磷虾种群生物量进行建模，我们的研究将超越描述性水平，并将为DFO提供一个综合管理工具，以帮助建立一个事实-为决策者以及最终也为工业利益相关者提供风险评估和管理的确定基础。

In the past decade economic interests in exploitation of the highly valuable krill resources have grown in the natural resource industries. In Canada, interest in potential new krill source focusses on the evaluation of biochemical composition of northern and arctic krill for nutraceutical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The prime objective of this proposal is to examine the ecological resilience of the krill stocks in the St Lawrence system prior to human exploitation. In this context Canadian krill stocks must continue to represent a reliable basis for higher trophic predators depending largely on this resource, a prerequisite before allowing any human exploitation. Therefore, the role of krill as a forage species must be evaluated before any decision on krill exploitation of the stocks can be made. The proposed research addresses the strategic importance of being able to assess the natural variability in quality and quantity of krill stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem, in view of krill becoming a potential new sustainable exploited resource in accordance with the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) policies on new emerging fisheries and new fisheries for forage species. A combined effort of university and governmental researchers and an industrial partner will provide new understanding of biological processes and population dynamics of two sympatric krill species, by a complementary approach, including field observations, laboratory experiments, and modelling. Most importantly, by coupling IBMs of the krill population dynamics and productivity to the 3D dynamics of the physical environment and by modelling the krill stock biomass in the framework of a mass-balanced food web model, our research will go beyond the descriptive level and will provide DFO with an integrated management tool to help establish a fact-determined basis for decision makers and eventually also for industrial stakeholders in risk evaluation and management.