Caroline Bouchard

Greenland Institute of Natural Resources · Greenland Climate Research Centre

Variations in larval fish growth rates are largely the result of variability in biotic and abiotic characteristics of the feeding environment experienced by each individual. An assessment of an individual's overall feeding success (i.e. accumulation of utilizable organic matter) can best be achieved at the time of capture when the relationships amo...

The early life stages of Boreogadus saida and Arctogadus glacialis are morphologically similar, making it difficult to assess differences in their ecological niche. The present study documented for the first time the early life stage ecology of A. glacialis, compared it to that of B. saida, and identified the factors separating the niches of the tw...

Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and ice cod (Arctogadus glacialis) are sympatric on continental shelves of the Arctic Ocean. The larvae and early juveniles of the two species are similar, and discrimination based on morphology and pigmentation is uncertain. We present a discrimination criterion based on the difference in lapillus nucleus size between...

We report sets of 19 and 16 microsatellite loci for the examination of the population genetics of Boreogadus saida and Arctogadus glacialis, respectively. Six of these loci were developed from a collection of 9,497 expressed sequences from B. saida while the remaining loci were found in the literature and optimized for use in B. saida and A. glacia...

Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) is the most abundant forage fish species in Arctic seas and plays a pivotal role in the transfer of energy between zooplankton and top predators. The dominance of Arctic cod and the Arctic’s relatively low biodiversity interact such that changing population dynamics of Arctic cod have cascading effects on whole Arctic...

Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) is the most abundant forage fish in the Arctic Ocean. Here we review Arctic cod habitats, distribution, ecology, and physiology to assess how climate change and other anthropogenic stressors are affecting this key species. This review identifies vulnerabilities for different life stages across the entire distribution r...

The strong seasonality of sub-Arctic seas needs to be considered to understand their ecosystems. The Hudson Bay system undergoes strong seasonal changes in 1) sea ice conditions, alternating between complete ice cover in winter and open water in summer; 2) river discharge, which peaks in the spring and influences the stratification of the bay; and...

Arctic cod ( Boreogadus saida ) are often found in front of glaciers, which is the least studied of the species' habitats. Uummannap Kangerlua and Sullorsuaq in West Greenland provide a unique opportunity to study Arctic cod in the glacial habitat, as they are among the few places with a directed Arctic cod fishery. Inuit fishers from these fjords...

Northern sand lance (Ammodytes dubius) are essential forage fish in most offshore, temperate-to-polar waters on the Northwest Atlantic shelf (NWA), but their population structure and genetic separation from the American sand lance (A. americanus) remain unresolved. We assembled a reference genome for A. dubius (first in the Ammodytidae) and then us...

Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) strongly dominates the ichthyoplankton assemblages of High Arctic seas, hence competition with other native species seldom has been studied. Yet, interspecific competition could negatively impact the survival of early life stages of fishes in Arctic areas where higher diversity prevails. We surveyed the ichthyoplankton...

Understanding larval growth, mediated by the interaction of early life traits and environmental conditions, is crucial to elucidate population dynamics. We used a bioenergetic model as an integrative tool to simulate the growth of Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) larvae and to test the sensitivity of modeled growth to temperature and food quantity and...

Greenland’s coastal margins are influenced by the confluence of Arctic and Atlantic waters, sea ice, icebergs, and meltwater from the ice sheet. Hundreds of spectacular glacial fjords cut through the coastline and support thriving marine ecosystems and, in some places, adjacent Greenlandic communities. Rising air and ocean temperatures, as well as...

The diel vertical migration (DVM) of zooplankton is one of the largest species migrations to occur globally and is a key driver of regional ecosystems and the marine carbon pump. The dramatic changes in the Arctic environment in recent years, mainly associated with sea-ice decline, may have wide significance for the Arctic shelf ecosystems includin...

Buoyant Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) eggs are found at the surface or at the ice-water interface in winter. While winter temperatures in saline waters fall below 0°C, the temperature in areas affected by under-ice river plumes is slightly higher. Under-ice river plumes may therefore provide thermal refuges favoring the survival of the vulnerable e...

Climate change is rapidly modifying marine fish assemblages in the Arctic. Since fish eggs and larvae have narrower thermal tolerance than nonreproductive adults, their response to increasing temperatures is likely one of the main drivers of these changes. In this study, we described ichthyoplankton assemblages in West Greenland between 62 and 73 °...

Previous work found that an earlier ice breakup favors the recruitment of juvenile polar cod (Boreogadus saida) by enabling early hatchers to survive and reach a large size by late summer thanks to a long growth season. We tested the hypothesis that, in addition to a long growth season, an earlier ice breakup provides superior feeding conditions fo...

Understanding the feeding ecology of polar cod (Boreogadus saida) during its first year of life is crucial to forecasting its response to the ongoing borealization of Arctic seas. We investigated the relationships between diet composition and feeding success in 1797 polar cod larvae and juveniles 4.5–55.6 mm standard length (SL) collected in five A...

Polar cod, Boreogadus saida, is an important part of Arctic and boreal marine ecosystems. Knowledge of polar cod population genetic structuring can provide insight into how the species may respond to environmental change, and allow for establishment of meaningful management units. To examine population genetic structure of B. saida, we analysed nin...

ISSN: 1397-3657 ISBN: 87-91214-88-2 EAN 9788791214882 Web: http://www.natur.gl/publikationer/tekniske rapporter Citation: Bouchard (2020) Ichthyoplankton and pelagic fish assemblages in the Greenland Sea in 2017. Technical report no. 110, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Greenland. ISBN 87-91214-88-2 24 pp.

Climate warming and sea ice decline are expected to increase fish population movements in the circumpolar Arctic, including across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA). Knowledge gaps on present distribution, habitat uses, barriers to dispersal, and population connectivity along the Northwest Passage (NWP) limit science-based management of fish in...

An increasing number of boreal marine species are expected to invade the warming Arctic Ocean with the potential to displace endemic species. We provide first evidence that Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) is expanding its range in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, a region far outside the species temperate-boreal traditional range south of...

Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) is the dominant forage fish in Arctic seas and the main prey of the ringed seal (Pusa hispida), the beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) and several seabird species. Changes in the abundance of polar cod will have cascading effects on arctic marine ecosystems. We tested the hypothesis that an earlier sea ice breakup and warme...

In this study, utilization of catch-quota balancing mechanisms in the Icelandic demersal fishery, which allow for individual transferable quota to be transformed among species and transferred between years, is analyzed to determine whether annual catches closely adhere to total allowable catches on average. Icelandic landings data for 14 demersal f...

Current trends of fish communities in the interior Arctic Ocean are largely unknown, whereas more fishes of boreal origin are reported from the Chukchi and Barents Seas recently. To assess variability in species composition and spatiotemporal occurrence in ichthyoplankton in the southeast Beaufort Sea, we sampled larval and juvenile fish using squa...

Arctic marine food webs are centered on polar cod (Boreogadus saida), a small, largely pelagic gadid, which movement and migration remain unclear, especially for the early life stages. The present study examined the otolith chemistry of juvenile polar cod from six oceanographic regions of the Arctic Ocean in order to document patterns of spatial se...

Early life-history stages of polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and ice cod (Arctogadus glacialis) co-occur on Arctic shelves and are are nearly identical in morphology. The two species were sampled in southeastern Beaufort Sea from April to August of 2004 and 2008. A stratified subset of 2126 of the 10565 gadids collected was identified to species by ge...

Several catch-quota balancing regulations are currently employed in the Icelandic multi-species demersal fishery. Two of those mechanisms, between-year transfers and species transformations (in which quota for one species can be transformed into quota of another species at specified market-based conversion rates, “cod equivalents”) can result in so...

Otolith chemistry of juvenile polar cod Boreogadus saida from six oceanographic regions of the Arctic Ocean was examined. Five elemental ratios (Li/Ca, Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca, Sr/Ca and Ba/Ca) were analysed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in three otolith zones representing the egg, larval and juvenile stages. The conc...

The very abundant polar cod (Boreogadus saida) plays a preponderant role in the Arctic marine ecosystem and consequently has received significant attention in recent years. The ice cod (Arctogadus glacialis), a common species in all Arctic seas, is much less studied. Both species co-occur on Arctic continental shelves and their early life stages ar...

Based on the analysis of otolith microstructure, polar cod larvae and pelagic juveniles (20 to 55 mm standard length) sampled in September in the Laptev Sea (Siberian Arctic Ocean) hatched under sea-ice cover from mid-March to early July in 2003, and from early January to early July in 2005. During the polar night in January and February 2005, freq...