Project Information

Title: HRM Program: Herring Condition Monitoring 15120111-L

Project Year and Number: 2015: 15120111-L

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: 2016: 16120111-L, 2014: 14120111-L, 2013: 13120111-L, 2012: 12120111-L

Principal Investigator (PI): Kristen Gorman

Managing Agency: NOAA

Assisting Personnel: None

Project Website: https://pwssc.org/exploring-changes-in-herring-energetics-over-winter-months/

Research Location: Prince William Sound

Restoration Category: Monitoring, Research

Injured Resources Addressed: Pacific Herring

Abstract:

Outlined here is a single herring monitoring project that is a part of an integrative program that will enhance the current herring monitoring efforts and examine aspects of particular life stages to allow better modeling of Prince William Sound herring populations. The long-term goal of the program is to improve predictive models of herring stocks through observations and research. This project will be furthering the development of an overwinter herring mortality model that began with an ongoing monitoring project initiated in 2007, and incorporates results from Prince William Sound herring research dating as far back as the 1990’s. Accordingly, herring are sampled in November and the following March (Objectives 1 and 2). The model runs by applying herring condition observations made before and after winter (Objective 3). Proposed sampling will commence in November 2012 and end in March 2016. The purpose of the time series is to relate overwinter mortality to herring recruitment. Additionally, this project will be furthering the development of an overwinter herring mortality model with additional data types including proximate composition, RNA/DNA, and diet (Objective 6), as well energy levels per se. The goal is to use physiological indicators to realistically modify the daily energy loss rate in the overwintering model. The results of model improvement will be tested using the March data model validation approach that began in 2007. We will no longer be assessing competitive effects of other juvenile fishes on condition of age-0 herring using stable isotope analysis as noted in previous proposals (Objective 4). Our experience with the sampling program is that we were unable to target the sample sizes needed for other species to make this a realistic goal. However, this year we intend to examine the relationship between age-0 herring length and scale growth (Objective 5) using existing data collected as part of this program, in order to better interpret long-term scale data held by Alaska Department of Fish and Game within the context of energetics.


Proposal: View (75 KB)

Reports:
Annual Report FY15: View (603 KB)
Final Report: See Project 16120111-L

Publications from this Project: None Available