Publications

Overall, we show that climate change can have differing impacts on predator–prey synchrony across life-history stages.

The 1996 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) mandates NOAA Fisheries to identify habitats essential for managed fish and invertebrate species and conserve habitats from adverse effects of fishing and other anthropogenic activities. Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) is defined under the act as ‘those waters and substrates necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding or growth to maturity’. As part of this mandate, EFH descriptions for all species listed under a Fisheries Management Plan in Alaska waters are needed. In addition, these descriptions are routinely revisited under a 5-year cycle that reviews and updates EFH information (including species descriptions) with new data and research.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act mandates that the National Marine Fisheries Service identify habitats essential for managed species and conserve them from adverse effects of fishing and other anthropogenic activities.

The Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling (REEM) Program’s laboratory is primarily dedicated to the task of collecting data on the stomach contents of Alaskan marine fish. This laboratory is also commonly known as the Food Habits Lab or Trophic Interactions Lab. This Stomach Content Analysis Procedures Manual describes analysis methods, identification techniques, and data entry procedures to be used when processing stomach samples. A companion manual, the Chemical Handling and Sample Tracking Procedures Manual, covers general laboratory safety and the procedures for handling chemicals, tracking samples and other common laboratory tasks. Finalized versions of these manuals, as well as The Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s Standard Operating Procedures for Hazardous Chemicals information and The On-Screen Form Manual, are available.

This guide culminated from years of research on the importance of the nearshore marine environment to fishery resources in Alaska.

While the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) has been conducting marine research for decades in Alaskan waters, a lot of basic information about the seafloor, such as depth, is generally not known beyond what is depicted on small scale (1:100,000) NOS (National Ocean Service) navigational charts. Therefore, we have been creating more detailed bathymetry and sediment maps in order to provide a better understanding of how studied animals interact with their environment. Our smooth sheet bathymetry compilation of the central Gulf of Alaska (CGOA) ranged geographically from the Trinity Islands in the west, across the southern coast of Kodiak Island, around the Barren Islands, along the southern Kenai coast, outside of Prince William Sound(PWS), and east and southeastalong the coast to Cape Ommaney, including inlets such as Icy Bay, Yakutat Bay, Lituya Bay, Cross Sound, Salisbury Sound, and Sitka Sound, covering an arc of about 1,400 km of shelf (Fig. 1). The CGOA is a large area covering about 20 degrees of longitude and 4 degrees of latitude, with numerous geomorphic features such as islands, wideinlets,fjords, straits, banks, reefs, glacial troughs and moraines, active tidewater glaciers, fault lines, and shelves both broad and narrow. OurCGOA boundaries are somewhat arbitrary as the CGOA connects to other regions such as the western Gulf of Alaska (GOA), Shelikof Strait, Cook Inlet (Zimmermann and Prescott 2014), interior PWS, the inside waters of Southeast (SE) Alaska, the easternmost portion of the GOA ranging from Cape Ommaney to Dixon Entrance, as well as the open ocean. Our definition of the geographic boundaries was set to match the boundaries of the Gulf of Alaska Integrated Ecosystem Project (GOA-IERP), sponsored by the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB).

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) mandates NOAA to identify habitats essential for managed species and conserve habitats from adverse effects on those habitats. To meet these mandates, NOAA’s research must identify habitats that contribute most to the survival, growth and productivity of managed fish species and determine science-based measures to best manage and conserve these habitats from adverse effects of human activities. The NOAA Essential Fish Habitat Research Implementation Plan (AFSC 2006) for Alaska guided research to meet EFH mandates in Alaska during the last several years. This document revises and supersedes the initial Implementation Plan (AFSC 2006), and similar to the first plan is expected to guide the next several years of EFH research. The revision process began with a coordination meeting between Alaska Region habitat managers and Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) habitat scientists to determine the scope of the revised EFH research plan with a smaller group of 11 AFSC and Alaska Region staff subsequently completing the revision.

NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-OPR-11 Workshop Date: 26-28 April 1995