LAND USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

Purpose: To develop and implement research programs that investigate broad questions about how changing environmental conditions (e.g., land use, increasing ocean temperature, ocean acidification) could impact future crab populations in Washington state and to develop tools that can promote and support the resiliency of Dungeness crab populations in the face of these impacts.

Research Priorities:

• Determine how different effects of climate change may directly and indirectly affect Dungeness crab at various life histories

• Explore how climate change may affect the current management system

• Elucidate the effect warming temperature has on population dynamics

• Investigate the socio-economic impacts associated with climate change