Marine Environment and Fisheries

Course Description:

The course offers a comprehensive overview of the marine environment, both its biota and physical aspects, in relation to sustainable harvesting and resource use in fisheries. The course will cover an overview of major oceanography features globally and locally and a detailed overview of main food-webs in the North Atlantic. The course covers biological and fisheries science definitions that are important in marine resource management (e.g. fish stocks, growth, mortality, stock size indexes, yield, recruitment, catch, stock size predictions) in relation to biological and ecological processes that may influence the resources such as stock size or distribution. The course covers structure and classification of fish species, with a detailed discussion on the biology, life history patterns, catches, and state of selected fish stocks in the North Atlantic. The impact of climate change and large-scale changes in the marine environment will be covered and set in context with related variation in marine resources. Other important environmental issues of the marine environment will be covered, such as pollution, ocean acidification, coral bleaching and trophic cascades. The role and implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) will be discussed in international and local context.