Calanus spp. monthly biomass and North Atlantic Right Whale potential habitat

The purpose of this dataset is to describe seasonal and spatial variations in Calanus prey and potential feeding habitats for North Atlantic Right Whales in Canadian and United States waters over the 1999–2024 period, using species distribution models (SDM). The SDMs were constructed using zooplankton data from oceanographic monitoring programs in Canada and the United States, covering the Labrador Shelf as far as New England, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Scotian Shelf and the Gulf of Maine. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) have been developed separately for each Calanus species (C. finmarchicus, C. hyperboreus, C. glacialis). These models use the abundance (individuals m-2) of copepodites stages IV to VI, as they are similarly sampled between the two programs and have a larger energy potential than stages I to III. The models include temperature in the 0-50 m layer, minimum temperature in the water column, bathymetry and the spatial climatology of salinity as a proxy for seascape connectivity. These indicators are extracted from GLORYS12v1 provided by the EU Copernicus Marine Service Information (https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00021) on a monthly scale. The…

Publisher

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Resources

4

Updated

2026-09-08