North Pacific Research Board

Fishes and Invertebrates

A major goal of the Board is to improve our ability to manage and protect the healthy, sustainable fish and wildlife populations that comprise the ecologically diverse marine ecosystems of the North Pacific, and provide long-term, sustainable benefits to local communities and the nation.

This is a very large task, considering that the marine regions off Alaska support rich and vast assemblages of fish and invertebrates, and the largest fisheries in the U.S. These assemblages are extremely important not only economically, but also ecologically and socially.

If fishing is the human activity that has the greatest impact on both targeted and nontargeted populations in the North Pacific, as the National Research Council contends, resource managers must know how the ecosystem functions, and understand the life histories and distributions of the fish stocks themselves and how they are influenced by fishing and changes in their environment.

Studies funded in this category fall within five broad topics which together address pressing fishery management issues and marine ecosystem information needs:

Fishes and invertebrates research funded by NPRB

Through 2008, the Board has supported 76 fish and invertebrate projects for just under $14 million, of which 47 have been completed. Researchers have studied a variety of forage species, jellyfish, squid, crab, sculpin, skates, sharks, salmon, rockfish, halibut, pollock, cod, Atka mackerel, and other groundfish species.

Projects are split fairly evenly between the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, with a few projects taking place in the Arctic Ocean, reflecting the different degrees of importance of commercial fisheries throughout Alaska.

The complex factors that influence the behavior of fish and drive the fluctuations of their populations require all four research approaches described in the NPRB Science Plan (monitoring, modeling, process, and retrospective studies). The majority, however, have focused on processes in order to increase our understanding and ability to forecast future changes. Several involve cooperative research projects with industry and/or communities, and draw upon local and traditional knowledge.

Research Highlights

Project 924: Fish guts, stuffed toys ... and DNA?

explaining the exhibitMike Canino (left) (Project 924) wants to know what fish are eating. Diet says a lot about where fish live, how much they eat, and how they move energy through ocean ecosystems.

species identification exhibit for kidsDiet is easy enough to figure out when there are large, whole chunks of undigested food in a fish's stomach, but highly-digested items or tiny eggs and larvae meals are next to impossible to identify conclusively. So Canino decided to get down to basics: create a DNA database and molecular protocols to rapidly and accurately identify fish prey items and eggs and larvae of commercially important fish species.

Kids learn a different way to identify prey species other than visually

Canino has managed to bring this concept of species identification at the genetic level to children ages 5-12 via an NSF-supported Portal to the Public program conducted at the Pacific Science Center (PSC) in Seattle, a "hands-on exhibition" setting for science outreach.

The exhibit is a fold-out box (above right) with a display panel explaining that scientists study gut contents of fish to understand food webs. See larger image

gut contents of stuffed sharkA simple food web includes Shredder, a stuffed great white shark, as apex predator, and two fish species (red fish and blue fish) as prey. Another display panel shows the concept of using DNA for species ID.

Fish guts!

Kids are then invited to examine Shredder's gut contents. They unzip and empty Shredder's "gut" (top right) and count the red and blue fish. See larger image

The gut also includes four skeletons that can't be identified visually, so kids try to match "DNA sequences" (colored beads on a string attached to the skeleton, bottom right) to the two known sequences of red and blue fish suspended within Plexiglas tubes on the wall of the box. See larger image

beads representing DNAThree of the four skeleton sequences match one of our two known prey species, but a fourth matches neither. Kids learn that another fish species has been detected, that our simple food web has now been expanded, and that's how science moves forward.

Permanent, portable, and popular

The exhibit was used at four "Scientist Spotlight" days at the PSC and has been hugely successful with children and their parents. It is available as a permanent, portable exhibit for AFSC outreach activities. Additionally, it has been used in several outings to grade schools and it is a hit in those settings, as well. Canino plans to display the exhibit in future Scientist Spotlight opportunities at the PSC.

 

Project 917: Crab bycatch mortality research spotlighted

(Feb 2010) KUCB-TV Unalaska recently featured ongoing cooperative research between NOAA-NMFS and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Researchers want to learn the survival rates of female and sublegal male opilio, or snow crabs (right) that are caught and then returned to the water. See the KUCB report

Project 917 funds a cooperative effort between the crab fishing fleet and fishery scientists to quantify and reduce bycatch mortality. Using recently established procedures, scientists measure bycatch mortality on vessels fishing for snow crab in the Bering Sea. Read a February 2010 article in Fishermen's News that highlights this work.

Project 906: Octopus demand warrants further study

giant pacific octopus

(Oct 2009) NPRB-funded researchers from NOAA and UAF are teaming up with divers to learn more about octopus in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Currently, there are no directed octopus fisheries except by special permit in state waters, but increasing market demand has prompted the need for further study so that fishery managers would have enough information to set catch limits should the need arise.

This study (Project 906) will examine the reproductive seasons and seasonal migration patterns of the giant Pacific octopus, one of several species found in Alaska. Right: giant Pacific octopus. (Stephen Jewett/UAF)