Applied connectivity modelling at local to regional scale: The potential for sea lice transmission between Scottish finfish aquaculture management areas

Rabe, Berit; Gallego, Alejandro; Wolf, Judith ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4129-8221; O'Hara Murray, Rory; Stuiver, Caroline; Price, Darren; Johnson, Hakeem. 2020 Applied connectivity modelling at local to regional scale: The potential for sea lice transmission between Scottish finfish aquaculture management areas. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 238, 106716. 10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106716

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106716

Abstract/Summary

Due to the importance of parasite and disease controls for animal welfare, environmental sustainability and the economic viability of the finfish aquaculture industry in coastal waters, spatial management measures need to take into account the degree of connectivity between management areas. This paper describes the model integration (one-way nesting) of local high-resolution and wider domain hydrodynamic models around Scotland and the combination of their outputs to force a bio-physical modelling application to support marine spatial management. We used climatological flow fields from a hydrodynamic modelling framework (the “Scottish Shelf Model”) to estimate the degree of connectivity between Scottish finfish aquaculture Farm Management Areas (FMA) using bio-physical simulations of virtual organisms representing the planktonic phase of parasitic sea lice, an important problem for the aquaculture industry. Three types of analysis are carried out: presence/absence of connections between FMAs as the most extreme case, connection probabilities above a defined biologically-meaningful threshold, and above-threshold connection probabilities with a weighting associated with farmed fish within-area biomass (as a proxy for sea lice production) as a more realistic scenario. We find a general northward flow of particles from mainland farms aligned with the prevailing circulation and high connection probability towards the north. Some regions (Loch Linnhe/Sound of Mull) can be classified as net exporters and some (east coast of the Western Isles, the north-west coast) as net receivers of particles. A few selected regions show far reaching connections above the biologically-meaningful probability threshold, for example across the Minch between the Scottish mainland and the Western Isles. Other areas such as Shetland appear to be self-contained and internally well inter-connected. Our results are relevant to the marine aquaculture industry and regulators as they can provide useful information that can be used to develop effective strategies for parasite control.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106716
ISSN:	02727714
Date made live:	04 May 2020 13:33 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527631

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1016/j.ecss.2020.106716

ISSN:

02727714

Date made live:

04 May 2020 13:33 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/527631