Advection of the Red King Crab larvae on the coast of North Norway—A Lagrangian model study

This paper addresses the ongoing invasion of Red King Crab (RKC) along the coast of North Norway, and the specific objective is to study larval drift, locations of settlement and interannual variation for 1998, 1999 and 2000. Through this study, we have established that the coastal region seems to be the most main settling region. We have also shown the effect of wind regimes and the Ekman drift on the larval trajectories. Our study has further demonstrated that the general direction of advection of larvae is to the east, and this is a persistent feature. There is also a dispersion of larvae in westbound direction along the coast. However, the net westbound distance advected is less compared to those advected eastbound.