Biology seminar - Shifting baselines in the Icelandic cod population

This seminar is open to all.

Steve Campana, professor at the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, will present:

A 1000-year perspective on shifting baselines in the Icelandic cod population

Most edible fish species have been fished for centuries or millennia, leaving little record or understanding of their population responses prior to human impact, and thus no baseline for population conservation. But how do you reconstruct a past population from a time when there were no catch records, no fishery surveys, and no biological studies? The answer lies in the lowly otolith - the earstone of the fish - which records virtually all of the information needed for a modern fish stock assessment. In this talk, I will show how we reconstructed the abundance and population status of Icelandic cod over an 1100 year period, from the pristine state during the Viking era through to the modern era, based on cod otoliths recovered during archaeological excavations. So is the modern Icelandic cod population healthy? The answer to that question depends on your time frame.

Join the seminar in N-132 or on Zoom:

https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/63908244555 
Meeting ID: 639 0824 4555