Prof. Marty Krkosek receives award and joins Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response (MEOPAR) network
EEB Assistant Prof. Marty Krkosek receives 100K for the following MEOPAR Early-Career research project
Modelling and Predicting Disease Outbreak and Spread in Coastal Seas: Towards Sustainability in Fisheries and Aquaculture
Principal Investigator: Martin Krkosek, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto
Co-Investigators:
Mike Foreman, Institute of Ocean Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Peter Chandler, Institute of Ocean Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Mark Lewis, Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Biology, University of Alberta
Awarded: $100,000
Summary
This project aims to develop a Modelling framework to understand and predict the conditions in which a coastal area is susceptible to a disease outbreak, and how such an outbreak would spread geographically. To do so, it brings together Modelling of coastal hydrodynamics to understand pathogen movement and the Modelling of parasite population dynamics to understand the mechanisms underlying the outbreak of infectious disease.
The project focuses on an area of British Columbia called the Discovery Islands, east of Vancouver Island. It is one of the two biggest salmon aquaculture producing regions in British Columbia, but is also situated on the migration routes of Canada’s most important wild salmon stocks from the Fraser River.
Anticipated Outcomes
The $26 million federal judicial inquiry – the Cohen Commission – into the decline of Fraser sockeye identified disease interactions with farmed fish as a major uncertainty and research priority.
This project will help understand, predict, and manage infectious disease, not just in coastal aquaculture regions, but also inform management and policy of wild salmon stocks and the Canadian communities and economies that depend on wild salmon.