The snailfish is part of the little-studied mesopelagic community in the Bering Sea.  This community, an important part of the food web but of little commercial importance to humans, was surveyed by FOCI in spring 1999.	Near-surface ocean temperatures from mooring site 2 on the Bering Sea shelf illustrate the range of conditions observed from 1995 to 1999.  Surface temperatures during summer 1997 were the warmest ever recorded; in 1999 colder water prevailed.

Accomplishments in FY 99

FOCI scientists convened an International Workshop on Recent Conditions in the Bering Sea. The purpose of the workshop was to share information, integrate knowledge, suggest mechanisms, propose hypotheses, and outline future research needs to address and understand changing conditions in the Bering Sea. A prominent theme of the workshop was the implication of recent environmental changes on the management of living marine resources.  Workshop participants agreed that focused, long-term, integrated research is needed, and recommended the recently written Draft Science Plan for the Bering Sea Ecosystem that FOCI helped craft last year.

Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC) began its second research cycle (1999-2000) for NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program.  Objectives are to (1) determine how changes in on-shelf transport of nutrients impact pelagic food webs (including determination of how timing, duration, magnitude and species composition of primary, secondary and forage fish production affect food availability for higher trophic levels), and (2) determine how climate variability influences the spatial overlap of pollock of different life stages, and how the availability of juvenile pollock to predators affects pollock survival rate. First-year results underscore the importance of sea ice to ecosystem variability and establish some environmental factors that may be used to develop an index of pollock survival.  A final report (pdf file) on the first SEBSCC research cycle (1996-1998) supports the need to continue monitoring of the productive southeastern Bering Sea shelf to better understand the response of the ecosystem to climate forcing.  Contrasts in the environment of the Bering Sea shelf and slope from observations made during 1996, 1997, and 1998 underscore the strong interannual variability in the ecosystem.  Seasonal pack ice extent and duration, wind-driven mixing over the shelf during spring and summer, summertime sea surface temperature, mixed layer depth, timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom,  summer nutrient reservoir concentrations, seabird mortality, and salmon returns varied widely during the first research cycle.  One hypothesis is that oceanographic conditions, and, to a degree, biological responses, are controlled by climate/weather fluctuations.  For example, the position and strength of the Aleutian Low affects the direction and intensity of winds over the Bering Sea.  Those winds largely control the duration and extent of seasonal pack ice which influence the cold pool, a persistent area of cold, sub-surface water.  These features, in turn, affect the timing of the spring bloom and cannibalism of juvenile pollock by adults.

FOCI, one of a few marine fisheries oceanography programs in the world predicting recruitment, made its eighth annual prediction of pollock year-class strength for Shelikof Strait: average recruitment for the 1998 year class. Developed in 1992, the Shelikof Recruitment Index (SRI) is based on process-oriented studies, field surveys, and numerical modeling experiments.  This index is used to predict the abundance of age-0 and age-1 walleye pollock that will survive to recruit to the Shelikof Strait, Gulf of Alaska, fishery as adults.  SRI incorporates environmental estimates such as rainfall, wind mixing, advection, and larval abundance, and predictions by SRI compare favorably with actual recruitment. Together with spawning biomass estimates also produced by FOCI, the index provides fishery-independent information that helps National Marine Fisheries Service stock assessment scientists project future stock sizes.  These projections help the North Pacific Fishery Management Council  establish fishing quotas for the Gulf of Alaska.  This year FOCI began cooperative work with NMFS stock assessement specialists to incorporate FOCI's predictive scheme into the stock assessment model.

FOCI also supported the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean Theme Page, a clearing house for regional environmental information.  The theme page provides pointers to information and images generated by NOAA, universities and other governmental sources.  Included are links to up-to-date satellite imagery, new research, and educational material related to the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea.  The theme page also links to historical and real-time data, and to the Bering Sea Ecosystem Biophysical Metadatabase, a resource for locating data pertaining to the Bering Sea ecosystem. 

Plans for FY 00

• Continue monitoring marine environmental conditions on the Bering Sea shelf to help understand climate- to local-scale processes affecting the ecosystem.  Data from moorings at one of the proposed sites are the longest continuous time series of oceanographic variables measured for the Bering Sea.
• Conduct winter, spring and fall research cruises to the North Pacific, Gulf of Alaska, and Bering Sea supporting physical, biological and biophysical research for FOCI, SEBSCC, Arctic Research Initiative, North Pacific Marine Research Program and other associated programs.
• Produce a special issue of Topical Studies in Oceanography on the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem, with core articles by FOCI researchers.
• Forecast recruitment of the 2000 walleye pollock year class for Shelikof Strait.