East Coast of North America Groundfish: Initial Explorations of Biogeography and Species Assemblages
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East Coast of North America Strategic Assessment Project Partitioning the Total Mortality DFO r~I'j~ffm~niii~rlieqUe 10020258 of Atlantic Cod Stocks Project East Coast of North America Groundfish: Initial Explorations of Biogeography and Species Assemblages o Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA SH 213.5 August 1996 .E17 1996 c.2 About the East Coast of North America Strategic Assessment Project The East Coast of North America Strategic Assessment Project (ECNASAP) was initiated in the USA by NOAA's Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) Division to develop information and analytical resources for sup porting integrated management of large portions of the region's coastal ocean. The ECNASAP Pilot Project consists of inshore and offshore case studies, and is a cooperative effort among several U.S. and Canadian agencies. Digital map and data products are being developed in the Offshore Case Study for groundfish, seabirds, temperature, salinity, and sediments. This report summarizes the initial results for the groundfish component. About Partitioning the Total Mortality of Atlantic Cod Stocks Project In 1995, Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) initiated a series of research projects to address high priority issues for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The Cod Mortality Project is a component of this effort; its objective is to assess the main causes for the decline of cod resources since the mid-1980s. A subproject is to examine long-term changes in groundfish assemblages on a biogeographic scale, and to determine whether or not these changes coincided with changes in ocean climate. In collaboration with ECNASAP, this subproject is analysing groundfish community changes over the complete distributional ranges of many groundfish species, using trawl survey and environmental information from Cape Chidley to Cape Hatteras. Internet Access An abstract and ninety-nine species distribution maps derived from this report are available on the Internet. They can be accessed at: http://www-orca.nos.noaa.gov/ecnasap/ecnasap.html. ECNASAP products can also be accessed at: http://www.maritime.dfo.ca/science. The ECNASAP/Cod Mortality Project data sets can only be accessed through Stephen K. Brown at NOAA's SEA Division, Silver Spring, MD, USA (3011713-3000 ext. 181), or Robert N. O'Boyle at DFO's Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada (9021426-4890). Project Team Name Affiliation Name Affiliation B. Atkinson DFO, Newfoundland T. Lowery NOAA, SEA Division D. Basta NOAA, SEA Division R. Mahon Consultant S. Brown NOAA, SEA Division M. Monaco NOAA, SEA Division K. Buja NOAA, SEA Division R. O'Boyle DFO, Maritimes L. Claflin NOAA, SEA Division C. Robertson NOAA, SEA Division K. Dennis NOAA, SEA Division M. Sinclair DFO, Maritimes W. Gabriel NOAA, NMFSINEFSC D. Swain DFO, Maritimes G. Howell Environment Canada K. Zwanenburg DFO, Maritimes Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the cooperation of the Canadian and U.S. trawl survey pro grams active in the northwestern Atlantic. In the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we thank the North Atlantic Fisheries Centre, St. John's, Newfoundland; Marine Fish Division, Lamontagne Institute, Mon Joli, Que bec; Marine and Anadromous Fish Division, Gulf Fisheries Centre, Moncton, New Brunswick; and the Marine Fish Division, Scotia-Fundy Region, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. In the Na tional Marine Fisheries Service, we thank the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Christine Taylor, Lita Katz, and Michael Shelby, of NOAA's SEA Division, are greatly appreciated for their assis tance with computer software and hardware. Kevin McMahon, of NOAA's Office of Ocean Resources Conser vation and Assessment, is gratefully acknowledged for conducting final editing and report formatting. ":> I 2- l~ 1:'1 I s-~ East Coast of North America c- Strategic Assessment Project Partitioning the Total Mortality of Atlantic Cod Stocks Project East Coast of North America Groundfish: Initial Exploration of Biogeography and Species Assemblages h f' ~ r; i~ ~11 f, 0-1- &liJJbHlYb I JUN 1 2000 I LIBRARY /' E'::'OFORD INSTITUTE OF _ OCEANOGRAPHY -- .~I Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA August 1996 The appropriate citation for this report is: Brown, S.K., R. Mahon, K.C.T. Zwanenburg, K.R. Buja, L.w. Claflin, R.N. O'Boyle, B. Atkinson, M. Sinclair, G. Howell, and M. E. Monaco. 1996. East Coast of North America groundfish: Initial explorations of biogeography and species assemblages. Silver Spring, MD: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Dartmouth, NS: Department of Fisheries and Oceans. 11' pp. Erratum The data set used in the analyses of this report contains an error for Longnose eel (Synaphobranchus kaup/). The data analyzed comprise 3,678 individuals contained in the DFO data sets for the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland/Labrador regions. Data for an additional 458 individuals from the DFO Scotia Fundy region were inadvertently omitted from the analysis. Readers should note that the common name for this species in the DFO Scotia-Fundy data set is Slat jaw cutthroat eel, and that the genus is incorrectly spelled as Symaphobranchus in that data set. These errors have been corrected in the ECNASAP/Cod Mortality Project data sets. Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................................ iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARy .................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Study Objectives ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Intemet Access ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Background ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 THE DATA SET .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Trawl Surveys ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 METHODS ......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Data Transformation ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Visual Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Multivariate Analyses .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Temporal Analyses ........................................................................................................................................... 11 RESULTS ......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Visual Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Principal Components Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 14 Cluster Analysis ................................................................................................................................................ 29 Temporal Variation ............................................................................................................................................ 30 SYNTHESIS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................... 54 Visual Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 54 Principal Components Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 54 Cluster Analysis ... ............................................................................................................................................. 55 Temporal Change ............................................................................................................................................. 56 Comparison of Assemblage Analyses .............................................................................................................. 57 RECOMMENDATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT .............................................................