Risk factors associated with soft-shelled lobsters (Homarus americanus) in southwestern Nova Scotia, Canada
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1
University of Prince Edward Island, Department of Health Management, Canada
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2
Aquatic Science & Health Services, Canada
Soft-shelled lobsters pose an economic challenge to the lobster industry due to low meat yields and survivability during holding and transportation. The objectives of this study were to describe the spatio-temporal patterns of soft-shelled lobsters in southwestern Nova Scotia, and identify environmental and lobster-related factors associated with shell quality. We used data from a monitoring project, and remotely sensed water temperatures. Mixed-effect logistic regression and time-series methods were used to analyze more than 130,000 samples collected between 2004 and 2014. The annual overall prevalence of soft-shelled lobsters ranged from 9 to 38%, and varied significantly among fishing areas. Shell quality was influenced by lobster sex and size, and in the 2-months before the fishing season, lower water temperatures (4-6 weeks prior to sampling) were associated with reduced prevalences. Strong inter-annual variability in soft-shell prevalences than predictive abilities of water temperature on shell quality, suggests that adjusting fishing seasons, arbitrarily, by few weeks in these fishing areas will not improve the shell quality of landed lobsters and the trend of increasing prevalences of soft-shelled lobsters during fishing seasons will likely continue as water temperatures are predicted to rise in the future. However, changing start date for fishing season, dynamically from year to year, depending on average water temperature profile 4-6 weeks prior will likely see a reduction in the proportion of landed soft-shelled lobsters. Further research is needed to evaluate the effects of long-term temperature and ecosystem changes on lobster health in eastern Canada.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Epidemiology for funding support for this study.
Keywords:
lobster,
Soft shell,
Risk factors,
water temperature,
Spatio-temporal patterns
Conference:
AquaEpi I - 2016, Oslo, Norway, 20 Sep - 22 Sep, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Aquatic Animal Epidemiology
Citation:
Thakur
K,
Revie
C,
Lavallee
J and
Vanderstichel
R
(2016). Risk factors associated with soft-shelled lobsters (Homarus americanus) in southwestern Nova Scotia, Canada.
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
AquaEpi I - 2016.
doi: 10.3389/conf.FVETS.2016.02.00018
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Received:
30 May 2016;
Published Online:
14 Sep 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Krishna Thakur, University of Prince Edward Island, Department of Health Management, Charlottetown, PE, Canada, thakurvet@gmail.com