چکیده (انگلیسی):

Sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) are a significant source of monetary losses on salmon farms. Sea liceexhibit temperature-dependent development rates and salinity-dependent mortality, but to date nodeterministic models have incorporated these seasonally varying factors. To understand how environ-mental variation and life history characteristics affect sea lice abundance, we derive a delay differentialequation model and parameterize the model with environmental data from British Columbia and south-ern Newfoundland. We calculate the lifetime reproductive output for female sea lice maturing toadulthood at different times of the year and find differences in the timing of peak reproduction betweenthe two regions. Using a sensitivity analysis, we find that sea lice abundance is more sensitive to variationin mean annual water temperature and mean annual salinity than to variation in life history parameters.Our results suggest that effective sea lice management requires consideration of site-specific temper-ature and salinity patterns and, in particular, that the optimal timing of production cycles and sea licetreatments might vary between regions.© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).