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Abstract:
It is important to establish real-time predictions of ichthyoplankton distributions due to the increasing human activity in fish habitats and the need for distribution predictions that could potentially improve field coverage of ichthyoplankton. The model system may be used to evaluate the design of ongoing surveys, to quantify the overlap with harmful substances in the ocean after accidental spills, as well as management planning of particular risky operations at sea. A system has therefore been developed for operational simulation of ichthyoplankton distributions. We have coupled a two-day ocean forecasts from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute on a 4 km horizontal grid resolution with an individual-based ichthyoplankton model for Northeast Arctic cod and Norwegian Spring Spawning herring producing daily updated maps of ichthyoplankton distributions. Recent years observed spawning distribution and intensity have been used as input to the model system. The system has been running in an operational mode since 2008. The model output is available as regular lon-lat gridded abundances or graphical maps with a logarithmic scale. See Vikebø et al. 2011 PLoS ONE for more details.