Forage Fish Research Conducted Under the Gulf of Alaska Integreated Ecosystem Research Plan

From 2011 through 2014, a multidisciplinary team of researchers will be conducting coordinated research on the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) ecosystem. The project, the GOA Integrated Ecosystem Research Project (IERP), is funded mainly by the North Pacific Research Board. As part of this project, I am leading a group focusing on the ecology of forage fishes in the GOA. We will use multigear surveys in the nearshore as well as offshore acoustics to study how the abundance and distribution of forage fishes varies across space and time. The focal species for this work are capelin, Pacific sand lance, Pacific herring, and eulachon, as well as juvenile Pacific cod and walleye pollock. However, we also hope to identify other species that occur in abundance but may not be considered classic forage fish species. The primary spatial comparison is between an eastern region, encompassing the outer coast of Southeast Alaska, and a western region that includes the eastern coast of Kodiak Island and the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. We hope to capture seasonal and annual variability by sampling in spring, summer, and fall in the years 2011 and 2013. We will also analyze diets using several approaches to determine trophic relationships. Habitat, including fixed habitat and water column characteristics, will be studied throughout the surveys, and will include full oceanographic sampling. At this meeting, I will present an overview of the project including preliminary results from the spring and summer fieldwork.