A Vulnerability Assessment of Fish and Invertebrates to Climate CHange in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts
Mentor: Dr. Jon Hare, NOAA Fisheries Director
Climate change is already affecting fishery resources and the communities that depend on them. Climate change has been implicated in the abundances and phenology of fish and shellfish species in many marine ecosystems, including Buzzards Bay. These impacts are expected to intensify in the future, increasing the need to understand which species may be most vulnerable to climate-related environmental change. Vulnerability assessments provide a framework for evaluating climate impacts over a broad range of species with existing information. These methods combine the exposure of a species to a stressor (climate change) and the sensitivity of species to the stressor. These two components are then combined to estimate an overall vulnerability. Quantitative data are used when available, but qualitative information and expert opinion are used when quantitative data is lacking. We define climate vulnerability as the extent to which abundance or productivity of a species in the region could be impacted by climate change. The results of this study will help to understand the risk of fish and invertebrates to climate change in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.