Estuaries are complex seascapes encompassing multiple habitat types that support critical nursery functions for shrimp and other commercially-harvested species. Shrimp reside in estuaries during multiple life-stages and, because shrimp life history occurs on an annual scale, populations are sensitive to changes in environmental conditions and available habitat. Commercial shrimp landings have been variable over the past two decades, and the effects of environmental factors on shrimp abundance remain unclear. There is therefore a need to better understand changes in shrimp populations in response to environmental variability due to changing climate conditions, weather events, and habitat modifications.
In this webinar, the Lowcountry Shrimp Collaborative team – which spans universities, fishery management agencies, fisheries extension offices, and NERR sites – will present results from their project, which used a multi-faceted research framework to better understand the importance of different estuarine habitat types and variable environmental conditions on shrimp populations. Join the session to learn more about the team’s approach, which utilized ongoing, long-term biological surveys within estuaries across South Carolina and Georgia, new data collection in the field and lab, and interviews with shrimp industry end-users to better understand the effects of varying environmental conditions on shrimp population dynamics and the associated shrimp fishery.
Speakers:
 | Robert Dunn, Ecological Dynamics LLC Robert Dunn spent 5 years as the Research Coordinator at the North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR at the Baruch Marine Field Lab at the University of South Carolina. He is a marine ecologist with experience working on numerous species and across varied habitats globally. Dunn has participated in or led five different NSC-funded projects since 2020. Through those projects, he gained experience with the collaborative science process, which he now applies through his environmental consulting firm. |
 | Liam Batchelder, University of South Carolina Liam Batchelder is a PhD Candidate at the University of South Carolina studying communities of estuarine fishes and crustaceans. Liam led the field sampling efforts for the Lowcountry Shrimp Collaborative during which we collected shrimp, their prey, and their predators from three estuaries across the southeastern United States. Each estuary which differs in environmental conditions, habitat availability, and anthropogenic influence, provides an opportunity for understanding what factors contribute to variability in shrimp populations. |
 | Joshua Stone, University of South Carolina Joshua Stone is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and his lab studies the impacts of environmental change on zooplankton ecology and estuarine food webs. Josh is the Technical Lead for the Lowcountry Shrimp Collaborative, and helps oversee data collection and analysis. His direct research role was to analyze the very early life stages of shrimp (postlarval) and their responses to environmental variability. |
 | Graham Wagner, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Graham Wagner is a wildlife biologist with the Shellfish Research Section at SCDNR. His work focuses on research and monitoring of South Carolina’s shrimps, crabs, crayfishes, and horseshoe crabs, both at the population level and at the organismal level. Through the Lowcountry Shrimp Collaborative, Graham investigated several long-term fisheries independent monitoring datasets that collect data on different life stages of white shrimp in South Carolina and Georgia. Using these data, Graham identified habitat- and season-specific shifts in the sizes of white shrimp and water temperatures, demonstrating the long-term impacts of shifting climate on penaeid shrimp. |