The value of Canadian lobster fisheries has increased markedly since the publication of a benchmark study in 2006, which already found the lobster fishing industry to be Atlantic Canada’s largest private sector employer, supporting at the time approximately 40,000 jobs in small, fishery-dependent rural communities. In NB, where there are approximately 1460 independent license owners, the annual value of lobster landings has increased markedly over the last 30 years, and particularly since 2010, when it averaged $189M and accounted for a staggering 61% of the value of all marine fisheries (Fig. 1). To this must be added other significant benefits, such as those related to transformation and exports etc.; in 2018, NB exported $734M worth of lobster to the US , and $16M to the growing market of China . Canadian lobster fisheries are mostly assessed based on landings and catch-per-unit-effort data. An important limitation of these data is that they are “fishery-dependent”, and therefore do not only reflect stock conditions, but also environmental conditions, harvester behavior and markets. This project aims to provide a stock production indicator and modeling tool that (a) are independent of the fishery and (b) provide insights into stock conditions 5-9 years in the future. The research will also increase our understanding of impacts of climate change on lobster larvae and early benthic recruits, which are particularly sensitive to these changes and hence likely useful indicators of future fisheries changes