ond 1998 Quarterly Rpt. sidebar
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(Quarterly Report for Oct-Nov-Dec 1998)
Continued
Participation in ADF&G Seasonality Study of Marmot Bay near Kodiak Island
The AFSC continued cooperative
participation in the third phase of a Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G)
seasonal bottom trawl study of Marmot Bay off Kodiak and Afognak Islands in the Gulf of
Alaska (GOA) 26-31 October aboard the ADF&G research vessel Resolution. The
primary purpose of the study, which includes sampling already completed in June and August
and additional sampling periods scheduled for January, March, and June 1999, is to
document seasonal trends in depth and inshore/offshore distribution of crab and groundfish
resources including Tanner crab (Chionoecetes bairdi), Pacific cod, walleye
pollock, arrowtooth flounder, flathead sole, rock sole, yellowfin sole, and skates.
Additionally, the seasonal nature of the sampling design will provide quantitative
measures of changes in co-occurrence of the demersal groundfish and crab complex, document
the changes in distribution of Pacific cod relative to Federal and state waters, and
document intra-annual changes in the distribution of Tanner crab associated with
maturation. Along with these objectives, the ADF&G invited AFSC scientists to conduct
ancillary studies including specimen collections, food habit studies, research in seasonal
gonad development, and size-at-maturity for selected species.
Thirty-one bottom trawl samples were
completed during the October sampling period with the ADF&G standard 400-mesh Eastern
survey trawl at depths ranging from 35 to 250 m. All catches were sampled and
processed to obtain species composition by weight for all components of the catch. Length
frequencies were obtained electronically for all commercial groundfish species.
Additionally, Geoff Lang of the AFSCs Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling
Program and Dan Nichol of the RACE Division Groundfish Program expanded the stomach and
otolith collections begun in June to include additional commercial species such as
flathead sole and arrowtooth flounder and initiated a reproductive study of Pacific cod
and flathead sole.
By Eric Brown.
FOCI Sponsored
Bering Sea Workshop
Many indications of unusual
conditions in the Bering Sea during the summers of 1997 and 1998 prompted Fisheries
Oceanography Coordinated Investigation (FOCI) leaders Drs. Art Kendall (AFSC) and Phyllis
Stabeno (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL)) to convene an international
workshop to discuss the recent observations. More than 70 participants from a broad
range of expertise, disciplines, and geographic areas attended. The workshop was
held on 9-10 November 1998, in Seattle.
The Bering Sea ecosystem is of
particular concern because the eastern Bering Sea provides almost half of the fish and
shellfish caught in the United States. The implications of recent environmental
changes on management of living marine resources was a prominent theme during the
workshop. Proceedings of the workshop are available on the Bering Sea and North Pacific
Ocean web site at www.pmel.noaa.gov/bering.
By Art Kendall.
Move to New
Kodiak Fisheries Research Center
In October 1998 AFSC staff moved
into the new Kodiak Fisheries Research Center on Near Island in Kodiak, Alaska. The Kodiak
Fisheries Research Center is the primary facility for the RACE Divisions Shellfish
Assessment Program. The new Kodiak Fisheries Research Center was built and is owned
by the Burrough of Kodiak Island, and the AFSC space is leased from the
Burrough.
Federal fisheries research
activities in Kodiak date back to the 1930s. In 1970 the NMFS Exploratory Fish and
Gear Research Program was transferred to Kodiak from Juneau, Alaska, and the Fishing
Technology Laboratory from Ketchikan, Alaska. At that time, NOAA entered into a Use
Agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard for two buildings and moorage at the Coast
Guards Kodiak Base.
Given the pressing needs for
expanded research capabilities in western Alaska, Congress provided funding and
instructions in 1992 to begin planning for a new research facility to be co-located with
the University of Alaska Fairbanks Fishery Industrial Technology Center on Near Island.
Groundbreaking for the new facility, known as the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center,
took place in June 1996. The facility is leased to various public agencies including
NOAA, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, National Park Service, and the University of
Alaska School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. The 25,000-square-foot complex
includes office space, conference rooms, a research library, an interpretive center, a
running seawater laboratory, conventional laboratories, as well as separate living
quarters for visiting scientists.
In addition to the main component of
the RACE Divisions Shellfish Assessment Program, NMFS offices in the new facility
include the Kodiak Office of the Centers North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program,
the Alaska Regional Office Management Division, and the National Marine Mammal Laboratory.
By Russ Nelson.
PICES Annual
Meeting
Members of the AFSCs RACE
Division participated in the PICES (North Pacific Marine Science Organization) 7th
Annual Meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, on 14-25 October. Ric Brodeur
presented two talks and two posters; the first talk was entitled Retrospective data
analysis in the U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific Program and the second was entitled
Forage fishes in the Bering Sea: Distribution, species associations, and biomass
trends and included Matt Wilson and Gary Walters as coauthors.
The posters were: Fronts and Fish: Interannual and regional differences in
frontal structure and effects on pollock and their prey with Miriam Doyle, Jeff
Napp, and Matt Wilson and Evidence for a recent increase in jellyfish in
the Bering Sea, with possible links to climate change with Gary Walters.
He also served as chair of the first meeting of the PICES Micronekton Working Group.
Bern Megrey presented two papers Application of fuzzy logic to forecasting
Alaska walleye pollock recruitment and (with V. Wespestad) On
relationships between cannibalism, climate variability, physical transport and recruitment
success of Bering Sea walleye pollock. Jeffrey Napp gave two presentations
entitled Zooplankton monitoring for the PICES Climate Change and Carrying Capacity
(CCCC) Program: Where do we go from here?" and Southeast Bering Sea
Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC): Ecosystem Dynamics Research in a Marginal Sea.
The former presentation was to the PICES Monitoring Task Team (of which Napp
is a member) and the latter was in a PICES special session titled Climate
change and carrying capacity of the North Pacific: recent findings of GLOBEC and
GLOBEC-like programs in the North Pacific. Pat Livingston of the REFM
Division also attended the PICES annual meeting and acted in the following capacities:
Livingston cochaired a workshop on
monitoring in the subarctic Pacific as part of the PICES CCCC Program; in the workshop she
made presentations on the CCCC program and the International GLOBEC implementation plan;
she cochaired the executive committee and implementation panel meetings of the PICES CCCC
program; and she presented the annual report of the CCCC program at the PICES Science
Board meeting.
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