Development of a Maryland Coastal Bays Ecosystem Model to Assess the Influence of Climatic Factors on Biomass Distributions of Fish and Macroinvertebrates, Food Web Linkages and Community Structure

The Maryland Coastal Bays (MCBs) are a system of shallow lagoons on the US East Coast connected to the Atlantic Ocean by two inlets. They are one of the most ecologically diverse estuaries on the east coast and serve as a nursery for many commercially important species such as black sea bass, summer flounder and blue crabs. Due to their significant use by the public, MCBs are vulnerable to environmental and human pressures. Understanding how environmental factors affect the ecosystem can help in managing this dynamic ecosystem. We created a fisheries ecosystem model for the MCBs consisting of 22 functional groups using Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) software to explore the influence of environmental factors on biomass distributions of key fish species including summer flounder, black sea bass, bay anchovy, weakfish, and blue crab. The biomass input data used for Ecopath were estimated from abundance indices data from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDDNR) Coastal Bays Fisheries Investigation Trawl and Beach Seine Surveys. Time series data imported from 1990-2017 through the MDDNR survey was used to fit the model. Climate change scenarios were run using changes in temperature and salinity to evaluate the effects they have on key species in the MCBs. The results of this study will aid in management of the MCBs.