Changing Arctic Marine Food Webs: A Coordinated Coastal-Offshore Ecosystem Approach in the Eastern Arctic

Fisheries and Oceans Canada funded $50,000 from the Partnership Fund in 2016 to the Government of Nunavut’s Department of the Environment to conduct this food-web research. Climate-related changes and warming are altering the physical, chemical, and biological structure (food webs) of the Arctic Ocean. However, communities across Nunavut face challenges when it comes to participating in the conservation of their natural resources. This initiative supports the development of a network of physical, chemical and biological monitoring sites to characterize habitat, and its use by fish and marine mammals, in the nearshore and offshore waters of western Baffin Bay and Cumberland Sound. The program will also build capacity for coastal monitoring in nearshore locations in the North by providing hands-on experience and skill development for students and other Nunavummiut involved in the Nunavut Community Aquatic Monitoring Program (N-CAMP). In the long-term, the integrated ecosystem knowledge gathered through this initiative will inform stock assessments of Greenland Halibut and Narwhal and improve the capacity to manage these stocks in a sustainable manner.

Project Number: CA2016.39
Year: 2016
Partner: Government of Nunavut, Department of the Environment
Principal Investigator(s): Janelle Kennedy
Eco-region: Arctic, North Atlantic