U.S. Department of Commerce / NOAA / OAR / ERL / PMEL / FOCI
	Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations

ATTENDING

Ric Brodeur, Ned Cokelet, Al Hermann, Steve Hammond (via teleconferencing), Anne Hollowed, Art Kendall, Allen Macklin, Bern Megrey, Jeff Napp, Susan Picquelle (rapporteur), Ron Reed, Phyllis Stabeno, Gary Stauffer

• There will be no FOCI cruise to the Bering Sea during June.  Proposals to support the June cruise that had been planned to survey the outcome of the bloom that occurs in April/May did not receive sufficient funding to allow staffing.   Jeff Napp noted that this would leave a hole in the nutrient time series.  Phyllis Stabeno replied that at least there will be an NSF cruise at mooring 2 that will retrieve and redeploy the nitrate meter, providing some nutrient data.

 
• Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity funds for FY 1999 research by federal and joint institute investigators should be released from NOAA Coastal Ocean Program (COP) this month.  Academic research partners have applied directly to COP, and their funds will be forthcoming within 60 days of application.

 
• The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) is administering $6.6 million of new  funding that FOCI should be aware of.  It is believed that Senator Stevens has established this fund to replace Dinkum Sands money that has not come available this year.  The funds were made available to UAF through USGS.  There is a steering committee comprised of representatives from the UAF, NMFS, US Fish & Wildlife, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and chaired by USGS.  All funding must be approved by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.  The proposed timeline is
02/15/99   Public and agency comments and priority input deadline
03/01/99   Release solicitation for proposals
04/15/99   Proposals due
06/01/99   Funding decisions made


The focus is the Bering Sea and area tied to it, although other North Pacific areas will be considered.  It is hoped that research projects and data acquisition will begin this summer.  Some of this money should go towards instrumentation and some of it will probably be spent by USGS on vessel time.   More information is available under NEWS on the Bering Sea theme page (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/bering/).

• The request for proposals for the second phase of Northeast Pacific GLOBEC research is posted on the GLOBEC home page.  The announcement may also be found under NEWS on the Bering Sea theme page.

 
• Gary Stauffer warned that FOCI may lose some ship time on the Miller Freeman in 2000 and subsequent years due to increased acoustic surveying required for Steller sea lion research.  FOCI's ship time in May is secure, but February or September time is at risk.  It is possible that money could be provided to charter a vessel to replace the Miller Freeman for the lost cruise, but full information will not be available until about January 1, 2000.

 
• Al Herman announced that PMEL has developed a new way of visualizing data in three dimensions using virtual reality technology.  He encourages anyone interested to contact him (206 526-6495; hermann@pmel.noaa.gov) for a demonstration of the system.

Jeff Napp recapped the American Society of Limnologists and Oceanographers meeting that occurred in Santa Fe, NM, Feb. 1-5.  The FOCI presentations went very well.  Ecosystem changes in high latitudes were given great emphasis, and there were several papers on climate change in the Bering Sea and Arctic regions.

Phyllis Stabeno reported on the February cruise underway aboard the Thompson.  The cruise has not been able to accomplish its goals.  Mooring 2 was inaccessible because of  ice cover, but cruise scientists were able to deploy a minimal mooring about 8 miles from the site.  Bad weather has put the cruise behind schedule.  It was noted that this year's weather pattern is similar to 1989 which produced a large year class of walleye pollock.

Susan Picquelle described the late larvae survey that will be conducted from the Miller Freemanand the Wecomathis spring.  The goal of the survey is to improve abundance estimates of larvae.  FOCI will survey new areas, try adaptive sampling, and examine the interaction between the cruise path and advection of larvae.  The Wecoma will conduct a standard grid survey over an extended area from Unimak Pass to the outer side of Kodiak Island.  The Miller Freeman will conduct inshore sampling in several bays,  a pre-survey (a grid of stations in the usual high larval density area immediately prior to the Wecoma occupying the same stations), and then rendezvous with the Wecoma to perform the adaptive sampling.  The purpose of the Freeman's pre-survey is two fold: to set the cutoff value for the subsequent adaptive sampling, and to examine the difference in densities from the same stations being occupied at two points in time by the Freeman and then the Wecoma.  During the adaptive sampling phase of the survey, the Wecoma will continue on its standard grid of stations and the Freeman will follow closely behind sampling the adaptive stations that are added around only the standard grid stations that produce catches higher than the cutoff value determined in the pre-survey.  (For earlier discussion on this topic see GULF OF ALASKA LATE LARVAL SURVEY - QUESTIONS AND A FEW ANSWERS in the December 1998 FOCI PI Meeting Minutes.)

LARGE-SCALE ENVIRONMENTAL SIGNALS AND WALLEYE POLLOCK RECRUITMENT IN THE GULF OF ALASKA

Art Kendall discussed his observation that, in general, big year classes of walleye pollock in the Gulf of Alaska follow El Niño years.  Art contended that FOCI needs to conduct more research on the effect of large-scale environmental signals on the recruitment of pollock.  FOCI provides AFSC stock assessors with our forecast of a weak, average, or strong year class, and they incorporate this information with the number of juveniles from acoustic surveys.  FOCI's forecast uses information on the number of feeding larvae and occurrence of eddies and amount of wind mixing, but does not consider direct large-scale environmental effects.  A graph of pollock recruitment over time showed that El Niño years always produced a poor year class, but the following year or two produce a large year class;  the year-class strength then gradually drops off until the next El Niño event.  FOCI should examine this relationship closer and try to elucidate the processes that could produce this effect.  Art further supported his argument for more large-scale environmental research by showing a plot of pollock recruitment versus cod recruitment in the Bering Sea; there appears to be a strong correlation implying that environmental effects on the two species are similar.

A discussion of Art's observations and recommendations followed.  Al Herman hypothesized that cod and pollock are opportunistic "weed" species that are able to quickly fill the void created by the ecosystem-wide damage wreaked by El Niño, thus explaining their upswing in the post-El Niño years.  Ric Brodeur noted that herring also seem to do well in the Gulf of Alaska after an El Niño.  Art reiterated that these are responses to large-scale events and we need to study these.  Ned Cokelet suggested that we should also look for possible effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on recruitment.  Anne Hollowed said that she, Steven Hare, and Warren Wooster recently published a paper looking at recruitment and sea surface temperatures, and they found similar correlations.  Art said that FOCI should compliment Anne's research on statistically detecting relationships between the environment and recruitment by researching the processes that create these relationships.  Anne noted that 1997 appears to be an average or above average year class in spite of the El Niño event, but this may be due to the timing of the event during the season, leading to a delay in the recruitment response.

NEXT MEETING

The next FOCI PI meeting will be held at 10 a.m., Thursday, March 11, 1999, in the Cloud Chamber (3/2065).  Please submit to Allen Macklin, no later than the day before the meeting, agenda items and fax-ready copies of figures that you intend to present.

Mail corrections and addenda to the FOCI Coordinator.