development, their normal nursery habitat will be reduced significantly. Adults are similarly unlikely to tolerate conditions of more than 5 °C. With a gestation period of up to two years and an average spawn size of up to 100,000 eggs, their fecundity (i.e., fertility) is high, but recent trends have shown that these characteristics do not make them impervious to threats like a warming climate. Population decline in the Bering Sea 2018 saw one of the warmest years coinciding with periods of the lowest sea ice extent on record in the Bering Sea. The driver of this trend was the northeast Pacific marine heatwave, which contributed to significant die-offs in a number of species. 2019 was yet another year of record-breaking temperatures, attributed to a weakened North Pacific High, which reduced evaporative cooling in the Northeast Pacific and saw a steep declines in the number of juvenile crabs,. In 2021, crabs of all ages declined, and habitat range shrank substantially. 2022 saw the most drastic decline in Bering Sea snow crab populations, decreasing from 11.7 billion in 2018 to 1.9 billion in 2022 (a decline of approximately 84%). This decimation of the crustaceans’ population spurred the closing of the Alaska snow crab season for the first time in history, an industry worth approximately $160,000,000 annually. Theories regarding decline Though the cause is yet unknown, several theories behind this decimation have been put forward. Overfishing is likely the main driver, intertwined with the effects of climate change. Increased water temperatures also increase snow crabs’ metabolism, so one theory is that their increased metabolic rate - combined with fewer resources due to a shrinking habitat - left them to either starve or consume each other. Predator range expansion is another possibility; as waters warm, predators that normally inhabit warmer southern waters (such as the Pacific cod) can travel further north in search of prey. A third theory is that a reduction in habitat area could increase the spread of disease like bitter crab syndrome. All these theories tie back to an altogether warmer ocean and are supported by the impacts of low ice delineated in Thoman, et al. (2020). Bering Sea climactic impacts on snow crab The Bering Sea southeastern shelf is composed of 3 biophysical domains: 1) a vertically well-mixed upper region (0-50m); 2) a middle region that is well-mixed in winter and stratified in summer (50-100m); and 3) an outer