Oceanic conditions along the Atlantic Coast of North America are changing rapidly. Surface water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine have increased faster than 99% of the global oceans, and major infrastructure projects, including the largest windfarm in the world, are under development along this seaboard. In Canada and the US, the Atlantic sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) supports lucrative fisheries, which were originally founded on an extensive scientific framework focusing on stock assessment. The sea scallop is an ideal sentinel species, as it is highly sensitive to changes in marine conditions. We used a drop camera system to estimate the number and size of scallops, as well as the distribution of their reproductive potential, over 70,000 km² of the continental shelf in 2016–2018, an area that nearly covers the entire range of this species. In total, we estimated that there were 34 billion individual scallops (95% confidence limits: 22–46 billion) within the species’ range. In this paper, we examine the role of the sea scallop as a baseline sentinel species that can be used to measure the impacts of environmental change and anthropogenic developments.

中文翻译：

---

那里有多少扇贝，为什么重要呢？

北美大西洋沿岸的海洋状况正在迅速变化。缅因州湾的地表水温度上升速度超过了全球海洋的99％，并且主要的基础设施项目，包括世界上最大的风力发电场，都正在沿该海岸开发。在加拿大和美国，大西洋扇贝（Placopecten magellanicus）支持有利可图的渔业，该渔业最初建立在以种群评估为重点的广泛科学框架上。扇贝是理想的前哨物种，因为它对海洋条件的变化高度敏感。我们使用跌落相机系统估算了超过70,000 km ²的扇贝的数量和大小及其繁殖潜力的分布在2016-2018年大陆架上，该区域几乎覆盖了该物种的整个范围。我们估计总共有340亿个扇贝（95％的置信度范围：22-460亿）在该物种的范围内。在本文中，我们研究了海扇贝作为基线前哨物种的作用，可用于衡量环境变化和人为发展的影响。