Alaska Fisheries Science Center Food Habits Database

The Resource Ecology and Ecosystem Modeling (REEM) program at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) focuses on the collection and analysis of data relating to trophic interactions in the North Pacific and incorporation of these data into environmental assessments, single-species and multispecies models. The systematic collection of North Pacific groundfish stomachs began in the early 1980s and continues through present day. The AFSC Food Habits database currently contains diet data from nearly 400,000 individual stomachs representing 200 distinct predator species collected from over 33,000 distinct hauls. Online access to summarized data are available through an interactive data map (http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/REFM/REEM/DietData/dietmap.html) showing annual distribution of predators, prey, and diet compostion by sample locations and interactive diet tables (http://access.afsc.noaa.gov/REEM/WebDietData/DietTableIntro.php) showing diet composition by species, region and year. A collection of prey identification photos, key diagnostic characteristics and identification techniques is available on the web via the Stomach Examiner’s Tool (http://Access.afsc.noaa.gov/REEM/set/index.php). Internal data exploration is accomplished with the Diet Analysis Tool. Detailed data are available by request.