2017-18 NPRB Biennial Report

Pacific sleeper shark bioenergetics Markus Horning | Alaska SeaLife Center | $422,819 A total of 10 wild Pacific sleeper sharks will be caught and equipped with acoustic and satellite transmitters to actively and passively track fine-scale movement patterns, foraging behavior, and longer-term movements. A subset of 5 caught sharks will be brought into temporary captivity at the Alaska SeaLife Center for controlled studies measuring metabolic rates, foraging ecology, and body condition. Oil spills and Pacific herring population recruitment John Incardona | NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center | $208,346 Because herring are sensitive to even relatively small spills of marine vessel fuel oil, this project will help understand the resiliency of herring populations to impacts of human activities in the North Pacific. Specifically, embryonic oil expsosure will be analyzed on Pacific herring, and how it impacts heart development, growth, metabolism, energetics, disease suceptibility, and first year survival, which affects overall recruitment. Genetics of mating dynamics in EBS snow crab Laura Slater | Alaska Department of Fish and Game $269,175 This project will develop and validate genetic markers while determining the number and species of males contributing to sperm reserves of primiparous and multiparous snow crab in the Eastern Bering Sea (EBS). The paternity of the embryos brooded by those females will also be determined. These data will enable better understanding of spatiotemporal trends in sperm reserves and fecundity in relation to the relative abundance and distribution of males.

Pcod IBM validation and enhancement Katharine Miller | NOAA AFSC | $582,665 The accuracy of Pacific cod individual base model predic- tions will be assessed while better understanding how temperature and prey affect juvenile Pacific cod growth, condition, and survival. These efforts will better determine impact on stock assessments, spatial variation in stock structure, and environmental impacts on larval and juvenile stages of fishes. Ichthyophonus in Pacific herring Maya Groner | Prince William Sound Science Center $138,636 This project will attempt to quantify disease mortality, infection prevalence, and infection intensity across age classes of herring over 13 years in Sitka and Prince William Sounds using a histological time-series. This work will improve management of ichthyophoniasis, including estimates of disease-mortality and incidence over time and place, and a validated early warning system to detect ‘acute’ ichthyophoniasis. Identifying distinct herring stocks via genetic sequencing Kyle Rosendale | Sitka Tribe of Alaska | $184,629 Traditional Ecological Knowledge suggests there may be multiple Pacific herring stocks in Sitka Sound. This project will use next-generation DNA sequencing to determine if there are distinct stocks in Sitka Sound. Additionally, spatial and temporal population structures of Pacific herring and the adaptations that allow them to deal with changing environ- ments will be explored.

2018 Hormone profiles for yelloweye rockfish Dion Oxman | Alaska Department of Fish & Game $216,934 This project will use hormone profiles and age estimates to reconstruct individual reproductive histories of yelloweye rockfish to test assumptions of age at maturity and spawning frequency, and to examine whether annual temperature vari- ation and long-term climatic indices influence reproductive potential. Survey design for untrawlable habitat in the Gulf of Alaska Kresimir Williams | NOAA AFSC | $127,889 Existing habitat and bathymetric maps and data will be compiled to define the extent and composition of untraw- lable habitat. The study will construct a fishery-independent survey framework including estimates of the required effort to implement this survey in untrawlable habitat. Behavioral response to underwater cameras and vehicles will also be explored for potential biases in an untrawlable habitat survey. Spatio-temporal model for estimating groundfish availability Gerald Hoff | NOAA AFSC | $251,304 This project estimates the spatial availability and the variation of availability among species and years for groundfish and crab species from multiple fishery-independent bottom trawl surveys conducted in the EBS. The methodology and protocols of this project will be applicable to other fisheries in the U.S. and worldwide where species may move across survey boundaries.

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