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Information on the annual variability in abundance and growth of juvenile groundfish can be useful for predicting fisheries stocks, but is often poorly known owing to difficulties in sampling fish in their first year of life. In the Western Gulf of Alaska (WGoA) and Eastern Bering Sea (EBS) ecosystems, three species of puffin (tufted and horned puffin, Fratercula cirrhata, Fratercula corniculata, and rhinoceros auklet, Cerorhinca monocerata, Alcidae), regularly prey upon (i.e., "sample") age‐0 groundfish, including walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogramma, Gadidae) and Pacific cod (Gadus microcephalus, Gadidae). Here, we test the hypothesis that integrating puffin dietary data with walleye pollock stock assessment data provides information useful for fisheries management, including indices of interannual variation in age‐0 abundance and growth. To test this hypothesis, we conducted cross‐correlation and regression analyses of puffin‐based indices and spawning stock biomass (SSB) for the WGoA and EBS walleye pollock stocks. For the WGoA, SSB leads the abundance of age‐0 fish in the puffin diet, indicating that puffins sample the downstream production of the WGoA spawning stock. By contrast, the abundance and growth of age‐0 fish sampled by puffins lead SSB for the EBS stock by 1–3 years, indicating that the puffin diet proxies incoming year class strength for this stock. Our study indicates connectivity between the WGoA and EBS walleye pollock stocks. Integration of non‐traditional data sources, such as seabird diet data, with stock assessment data appears useful to inform information gaps important for managing US fisheries in the North Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a comprehensive portfolio of theoretically sound indicators is fundamental to effective place-based management of coastal ecosystems at a wide range of scales. We reviewed indicator development case studies from seven different social-ecological systems over the first 10 years of the NOAA integrated ecosystem assessment (IEA) program, with the goals of identifying effective strategies and highlighting general principles that would inform future efforts. The IEA framework provided a versatile approach to developing indicators across a diverse range of differently scaled systems and partnerships, guided by organizing principles of screening transparency, iterative review, and an adaptive balance between quantitative evaluation methods and qualitative stakeholder guidance. Information exchange across the broad community of EBM practitioners facilitated progress between systems, chronologically tracking a path that reflected improvements in indicator development methods (especially for social indicators) and a growing focus on multisector EBM in smaller coastal communities. Most projects adopted innovative visual imagery to engage partners and stakeholders, which built trust and communication while enhancing the spectrum of indicators. Using guidance from the lessons above, future indicator development efforts will be better prepared to confront the recurring, transdisciplinary challenges of managing integrated social-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) encompasses approximately 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean and a coastline of over 12,300 miles. Along with the Great Lakes, this vast area generates ~US 370 billion of U.S. gross domestic product, 617 billion in sales and 2.6 million jobs each year. These ocean and coastal ecosystems also provide many important non-market services including subsistence food provisioning, health benefits, shoreline protection, climate regulation, conservation of marine biodiversity, and preservation of cultural heritage. As climatic changes occur, these benefits or ecosystem services may be significantly reduced or in some cases enhanced. These services are also under an array of pressures including over-exploitation of natural resources, pollution, and land use changes that occur simultaneously in synergistic, multiplicative, or antagonistic ways. This results in direct and indirect impacts that are often unpredictable across spatial and temporal scales. Here, we discuss a set of indicators designed in close collaboration with the U.S. National Climate Indicators System. Tracking the impacts via indicators will be essential to ensure long-term health of the marine environment and sustain the benefits to stakeholders who depend on marine ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a risk table to facilitate incorporation of additional information into the fisheries stock assessment and management process. The risk table is designed to evaluate unanticipated ecosystem and environmental impacts on marine resources that may require a rapid management response. The risk table is a standardized framework to document concerns about the assessment model, population dynamics, and the ecosystem/environment that are not explicitly addressed within the stock assessment model. A scoring procedure is used to evaluate the severity of the concern. These concerns can then be evaluated in support for or against a reduction from the maximum Acceptable Biological Catch while providing reviewers and stakeholders transparent documentation of the concerns. The risk table was applied successfully to several stocks on a trial basis during the 2018 groundfish assessment cycle for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and will be used for all full groundfish assessments in 2019. Rapid changes in climate are likely for Alaska marine ecosystems in coming decades, and these changes are not entirely predicable. Therefore, we avocate that the risk table approach should be included in the suite of management tools used to address the effects of climate change on Alaska marine resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is likely to change the relationships between commonly used climate indices and underlying patterns of climate variability, but this complexity is rarely considered in studies using climate indices. Here, we show that the physical and ecological conditions mapping onto the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) index have changed over multidecadal timescales. These changes apparently began around a 1988/1989 North Pacific climate shift that was marked by abrupt northeast Pacific warming, declining temporal variance in the Aleutian Low (a leading atmospheric driver of the PDO), and increasing correlation between the PDO and NPGO patterns. Sea level pressure and surface temperature patterns associated with each climate index changed after 1988/1989, indicating that identical index values reflect different states of basinscale climate over time. The PDO and NPGO also show time dependent skill as indices of regional northeast Pacific ecosystem variability. Since the late 1980s, both indices have become less relevant to physical–ecological variability in regional ecosystems from the Bering Sea to the southern California Current. Users of these climate indices should be aware of nonstationary relationships with underlying climate variability within the historical record, and the potential for further nonstationarity with ongoing climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine ecosystems are complex, and there is increasing recognition that environmental, ecological, and human systems are linked inextricably in coastal regions. The purpose of this article was to integrate environmental, ecological and human dimensions information important for fisheries management into a common analytical framework. We then used the framework to examine the linkages between these traditionally separate subject areas. We focused on synthesis of linkages between the Gulf of Alaska marine ecosystem and human communities of practice, defined as different fisheries sectors. Our specific objective was to document the individual directional linkages among environmental, ecological, and human dimensions variables in conceptual models, then build qualitative network models to perform simulation analyses to test how bottom-up and top-down perturbations might propagate through these linkages. We found that it is both possible and beneficial to integrate environmental, ecological, and human dimensions information important for fisheries into a common framework. First, the conceptual models allowed us to synthesize information across a broad array of data types, representing disciplines such as ecology and economics that are more commonly investigated separately, often with distinct methods. Second, the qualitative network analysis demonstrated how ecological signals can propagate to human communities, and how fishery management measures may influence the system. Third, we found that incorporating multi-species interactions changed outcomes because the merged model reversed some of the ecological and human outcomes compared with single species analyses. Overall, we demonstrated the value of linking information from the natural and social sciences to better understand complex social-ecological systems, and the value of incorporating ecosystem-level processes into a traditionally single species management framework. We advocate for conceptual and qualitative network modelling as efficient foundational steps to inform ecosystem-based fisheries management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term studies of predator food habits (i.e., 'predator-based sampling') are useful for identifying patterns of spatial and temporal variability of forage nekton in marine ecosystems. We investigated temporal changes in forage fish availability and relationships to ocean climate by analyzing diet composition of three puffin species (horned puffin Fratercula corniculata, tufted puffin Fratercula cirrhata, and rhinoceros auklet Cerorhinca monocerata) from five sites in the North Pacific from 1978-2012. Dominant forage species included squids and hexagrammids in the western Aleutians, gadids and Pacific sand lance ( Ammodytes personatus) in the eastern Aleutians and western Gulf of Alaska (GoA), and sand lance and capelin ( Mallotus villosus) in the northern and eastern GoA. Interannual fluctuations in forage availability dominated variability in the western Aleutians, whereas lower-frequency shifts in forage fish availability dominated elsewhere. We produced regional multivariate indicators of sand lance, capelin, and age-0 gadid availability by combining data across species and sites using Principal Component Analysis, and related these indices to environmental factors including sea level pressure ( SPL), winds, and sea surface temperature ( SST). There was coherence in the availability of sand lance and capelin across the study area. Sand lance availability increased linearly with environmental conditions leading to warmer ocean temperatures, whereas capelin availability increased in a non-linear manner when environmental changes led to lower ocean temperatures. Long-term studies of puffin diet composition appear to be a promising tool for understanding the availability of these difficult-to-survey forage nekton in remote regions of the North Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of ecosystem considerations, and in particular ecosystem report cards, in federal groundfish fisheries management in Alaska can be described as an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). Ecosystem information is provided to managers to establish an ecosystem context within which deliberations of fisheries quota occur. Our goal is to make the case for the need for qualitative ecosystem assessments in EAFM, specifically that qualitative synthesis has advantages worthy to keep a permanent place at the fisheries management table. These advantages include flexibility and speed in responding to and synthesizing new information from a variety of sources. First, we use the development of indicator-based ecosystem report cards as an example of adapting ecosystem information to management needs. Second, we review lessons learned and provide suggestions for best practices for applying EAFM to large and diverse fisheries in multiple marine ecosystems. Adapting ecosystem indicator information to better suit the needs of fisheries managers resulted in succinct report cards that summarize ecosystem trends, complementing more detailed ecosystem information to provide context for EAFM. There were several lessons learned in the process of developing the ecosystem report cards. The selection of indicators for each region was influenced by geography, the extent of scientific knowledge/data, and the particular expertise of the selection teams. Optimizing the opportunity to qualitatively incorporate ecosystem information into management decisions requires a good understanding of the management system in question. We found that frequent dialogue with managers and other stakeholders leads to adaptive products. We believe that there will always be a need for qualitative ecosystem assessment because it allows for rapid incorporation of new ideas and data and unexpected events. As we build modelling and predictive capacity, we will still need qualitative synthesis to capture events outside the bounds of current models and to detect impacts of the unexpected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Euphausiids (principally Thysanoessa spp.) are found in high abundance in both the eastern Bering Sea (EBS) and the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). They are an important part of these cold-water coastal and pelagic ecosystems as a key prey item for many species, including marine mammals, seabirds, and fish, forming an ecological link between primary production and higher trophic levels. Acoustic-trawl (AT) survey methods provide a means of monitoring euphausiid abundance and distribution over a large spatial scale. Four years of AT and bottom-trawl survey data (2003, 2005, 2011, and 2013) were available from consistently sampled areas around Kodiak Island, including Shelikof Strait, Barnabas Trough, and Chiniak Trough. We identified euphausiid backscatter using relative frequency response and targeted trawling, and created an annual index of abundance for euphausiids. This index has broad application, including use in the stock assessments for GOA walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) and other species, as an ecosystem indicator, and to inform ecological research. We then used generalized additive models (GAMs) to examine the relationship between relative euphausiid abundance and potential predictors, including pollock abundance, temperature, bottom depth, and primary production. Model results were compared with an updated GAM of euphausiid abundance from the EBS to determine if the factors driving abundance and distribution were consistent between both systems. Temperature was not a strong predictor of euphausiid abundance in the GOA as in the EBS; warmer temperatures and lack of seasonal ice cover in the GOA may be a key difference between these ecosystems. Pollock abundance was significant in both the GOA and the EBS models, but was not a strongly negative predictor of euphausiid abundance in either system, a result not consistent with top-down control of euphausiid abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bottom-up control, or physical forcing of upper trophic populations, is often cited as a major factor regulating marine species. In particular, seabirds are often cited as indicators of relative productivity and health of the marine environment. The degree to which physical forcing plays a dominant role and the mechanisms of effect remain unclear. We test the relationship between measures of oceanographic and atmospheric forcing, proxied by commonly available monthly to daily indices, and the response of populations of a ubiquitous seabird of the Pacific Northwest coastal environment, the common murre, Uria aalge. We constructed two models: an annualized bottom-up model that examines the degree to which population response variables, including population size, breeding success, and foraging parameters, are correlated with oceanographic forcing at space and time scales relevant to murre biology; and a daily direct forcing model that examines the degree to which diet choices reflect specific, local oceanographic signals. Our bottom-up model suggests that murres are regulated by bottom-up forcing, and that the strength of the association between physical change and population response may be mediated by density dependence. Our direct forcing model indicated that chick diet is affected by both local and remote parameters, including upwelling, tide, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. We conclude that murres, and seabirds in general, can be used as indicators of local to basin-wide physical change, but only under certain conditions: the life history of the species, and the specific local population, must be well known; a conceptual model that links life history traits to measures of physical change at biologically relevant space and time scales must be developed; and larger populations that are more apt to show density-dependent effects should be selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on a study which observed Common Murres at two breeding sites in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska and determined whether food availability was reflected in their time-budgets at each colony. Methodology; Results and discussion.

Presents a letter to the editor about the remission of chronic urticaria following eradication therapy in Helicobacter pylori-positive patients.