2017-18 NPRB Biennial Report

INTEGRATED ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH PROGRAMS

NPRB aims to further knowledge of North Pacific marine ecosystems and understanding of ecosystem processes and interactions in the context of a variable environment.

NPRB developed the Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (IERP) to promote mecha- nistic understanding of complex interactions within dynamic marine ecosystems. Initiated in the Bering Sea, continued in the Gulf of Alaska, and now active in the Arctic, this program sponsors research to investigate ecosystem linkages and processes. The program supports multidisciplinary teams in their efforts to advance hypothesis-driven, multidisciplinary research that explore the structure, processes, and interactions within North Pacific marine systems. The program actively promotes cooperation and exchange across disciplines (e.g., oceanography, fisheries, social science) and integration across components of the ecosystem (e.g., physics, chemistry, production, fish and invertebrates, marine birds and mammals, humans), and fosters collaboration and solicits investment from academic, government, and community institutions engaged in research and management.

This program focuses on ecosystem interactions but has direct relevance to species-specific and sector-specific questions and to informed management of fisheries and other marine resources. The intent is to recognize and characterize important features and processes and to improve our ability to forecast and respond to effects of anthropogenic and natural changes to these systems. To date, these programs have been geographically defined and region-based, designed to characterize a defined set of processes in the ecosystem. The projects include the following: • Bering Sea Project (2007-2014). This project, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, provided more than $50 million in research funding to understand the Bering Sea in the context of climate regimes and shifts in seasonal sea ice. • Gulf of Alaska IERP (2010-2018). This $17 million project investigated environmental processes and biological interactions that influence survival, transport, settlement, and recruitment of larval and juvenile stages of commercially and ecologically important groundfish. • Arctic IERP (2016-2021). In 2016, NPRB launched its Arctic Program to advance understanding of linkages between the northern Bering Sea and the Arctic, productivity and rate processes in the Bering Strait, physics and fish in the Chukchi Sea, and resource use and local knowledge in coastal communities. The Arctic IERP is funded in partnership with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, North Slope Borough/Shell Baseline Studies Program, and Office of Naval Research Marine Mammals and Biology Program. In-kind support was provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, University of Alaska Fairbanks, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and National Science Foundation. These multi-year IERPs have been implemented with successive stages, including assessment, research, and synthesis phases. In 2017, NPRB held its second Gulf of Alaska synthesis work- shop, integrating new researchers, data and analyses with existing models and understanding of Gulf dynamics and developing a set of tools, metrics and guidance for stock assessment and fisheries management. Also in 2017, NPRB launched the first field season for the Arctic with cruises in the northern Bering Sea, Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea; a second cruise was conducted in 2018.

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