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A Bathymetric-Based Habitat Model for Yelloweye Rockfish on Alaska's Outer Kenai Peninsula

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A Bathymetric-Based Habitat Model for Yelloweye Rockfish on Alaska's Outer Kenai Peninsula A BATHYMETRIC-BASED HABITAT MODEL FOR YELLOWEYE ROCKFISH (SEBASTES RUBERRIMUS) ON ALASKA’S OUTER KENAI PENINSULA A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Alaska Pacific University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science in Environmental Science By Joshua D. Mumm December 2015 I grant Alaska Pacific University the non-exclusive right to use this work for the purpose of making single copies available to the public on a not-for-profit basis if the University’s circulating copy is lost or destroyed. ____________________________________ Joshua D. Mumm Date________________________________ December 2015 A BATHYMETRIC-BASED HABITAT MODEL FOR YELLOWEYE ROCKFISH (SEBASTES RUBERRIMUS) ON ALASKA’S OUTER KENAI PENINSULA by Joshua D. Mumm THESIS APPROVED: Thesis Committee _____________________________ ________________ Chairperson Date Bradley Harris, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Alaska Pacific University _____________________________ ________________ Thesis Committee Date Roman Dial, Ph.D. Professor Alaska Pacific University _____________________________ ________________ Thesis Committee Date William Bechtol, Ph.D. Fisheries Consultant Bechtol Research APPROVED: _____________________________ ________________ Tracy M. Stewart, Ph.D. Date Academic Dean i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Brad Harris for his guidance and encouragement throughout this project. His enthusiasm, motivating work ethic, and knack for seeing past myriads of distractions to focus on the issues that matter were especially appreciated when I was discouraged and lost in inconsequential minutiae. Committee member Dr. Roman Dial opened my eyes to the power of R and provided a wealth of invaluable insight into the modeling process. Dr. William Bechtol’s expertise on the biology and management of rockfish in the area contributed much to the committee. I am deeply indebted to Mike Byerly for selflessly sharing the ROV and multibeam data he and others at the ADF&G office in Homer meticulously acquired and organized. Dr. Franz Mueter provided advice on a preliminary investigation. I owe Dr. Alexandre Hirzel a postcard for using his ‘postcard-ware’ to complete the Ecological Niche Factor Analysis. Lastly, although I only briefly corresponded with them directly, clearly this project was largely based on the work of Pat Iampietro, Drs. Mary Young, Rikk Kvitec, and others at the California State University, Seafloor Mapping Lab. I thank them for inspiration. ii ABSTRACT Motivated primarily as part of a habitat-based stock assessment, we explored the feasibility of modeling yelloweye rockfish (Sebastes ruberrimus) habitat in Southcentral Alaska using high- resolution multibeam bathymetry. A generalized linear model was developed with bathymetrically derived terrain metrics (rugosity, slope, bathymetric position index, and distance-to-rock) as predictor variables. The model was parameterized and validated using remotely operated vehicle observations. When evaluated for the Chiswell Island training area, the model correctly classified 96.0% (n = 100) of a reserved set of presence/absence validation points (Cohen's Kappa = 0.92; AUC = 0.98). When evaluated for the independent Nuka Island testing area, the overall accuracy was 82.5% (n=332; Kappa = 0.65; AUC = 0.95). This study demonstrates that suitable yelloweye habitat can be modeled with reasonable accuracy using high-resolution multibeam bathymetry, and such a model is fairly portable among sites along the Kenai Peninsula’s outer coast. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................v GENERAL INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND: AN OVERVIEW OF HABITAT MODELING AND THE BIOLOGY & MANAGEMENT OF DEMERSAL ROCKFISH IN ALASKA 1.1 Habitat Models .....................................................................................................................4 1.2 Rockfish ...............................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 2: A BATHYMETRIC-BASED HABITAT MODEL FOR YELLOWEYE ROCKFISH ON ALASKA’S OUTER KENAI PENINSULA 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................16 2.2 Methods..............................................................................................................................18 2.3 Results ................................................................................................................................28 2.4 Discussion ..........................................................................................................................32 GENERAL DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................45 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................48 TABLES ........................................................................................................................................57 FIGURES .......................................................................................................................................65 APENDIX ......................................................................................................................................94 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Predictor variables and scales considered for the ENFA and GLMs ..............................57 Table 2. Ranked performance of univariate models .....................................................................58 Table 3. GLM parameters .............................................................................................................59 Table 4. Error matrix for the Chiswell GLM in the Chiswell area ..............................................60 Table 5. Error matrix for the Chiswell GLM in the Nuka area. ....................................................61 Table 6. Error matrix for the Nuka GLM in the Nuka area ..........................................................62 Table 7. Summary of the Chiswell ENFA ....................................................................................63 Table 8. Summary of the Nuka ENFA ..........................................................................................64 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. North Gulf District.........................................................................................................66 Figure 2. Chiswell Island study area .............................................................................................67 Figure 3. Rugosity (VRM) in the Chiswell area ...........................................................................68 Figure 4. Distance-to-rock (DTR) in the Chiswell area ................................................................69 Figure 5. Coarse bathymetric position index (BPI) in the Chiswell area .....................................70 Figure 6. Fine BPI in the Chiswell area ........................................................................................71 Figure 7. Slope in the Chiswell area .............................................................................................72 Figure 8. Habitat suitability from the ENFA in the Chiswell area ...............................................73 Figure 9. Probability of habitat in the Chiswell area predicted from the Chiswell GLM .............74 Figure 10. Nuka Island study area ................................................................................................75 Figure 11. VRM in the Nuka area .................................................................................................76 Figure 12. DTR in the Nuka area ..................................................................................................77 Figure 13. Coarse BPI in the Nuka area ........................................................................................78 Figure 14. Fine BPI in the Nuka area ............................................................................................79 Figure 15. Slope in the Nuka area .................................................................................................80 Figure 16. Habitat suitability from the ENFA in the Nuka area ...................................................81 Figure 17. Probability of habitat in the Nuka area predicted from the Chiswell GLM ................82 Figure 18. Probability of habitat in the Nuka area predicted from the Nuka GLM .....................83 Figure 19. Correlograms for various scales of BPI .......................................................................84 Figure 20. Correlograms for various scales of VRM ....................................................................85
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