Project Information

Title: Prince William Sound Herring Forage Contingency, Submitted Under the BAA 070811

Project Year and Number: 2007: 070811

Other Fiscal Years and Numbers for this Project: 2009: 090811, 2008: 080811

Principal Investigator (PI): Tom Kline (Prince William Sound Science Center)

Managing Agency: NOAA

Assisting Personnel: None

Research Location: Prince William Sound and Adjacent Gulf of Alaska

Restoration Category: Research

Injured Resources Addressed: Pacific Herring

Abstract: Prince William Sound (PWS) herring recruitment is hypothesized to be contingent on young of the year herring attaining from zooplankton sufficient whole body energy content (WBEC) to survive their first winter. PWS recruitment is presently variable, having changed since the Trustee Council funded Sound Ecosystem Assessment (SEA) project ended. Juvenile herring will be sampled and analyzed for WBEC and natural stable isotope abundance (SIA) for comparison with SEA data. The PI has direct familiarity with WBEC and SIA done during SEA enabling duplication. Oceanic subsidies (detected with SIA) are hypothesized to augment zooplankton energy density, which varies in time and locations. High zooplankton energy density is hypothesized to enable herring to acquire high WBEC in certain areas at certain times. To test these hypotheses, herring forage will be assessed in terms species composition and density, SIA, and energy density, which will be related to herring WBEC by location and time.


Proposal: View (531 KB)

Reports:
Annual Report FY07: View (33 KB)
Final Report: Final Report Not available. For current status, please contact us.

Publications from this Project: None Available