NOAA – National Marine Fisheries Service Fisheries and the Environment (FATE) FY 2009 Annual Report September 2009 Executive Summary The Fisheries and the Environment (FATE) program is a research program that develops and evaluates ecological and oceanographic indicators to be used to advance an ecosystem approach to management by improving fishery stock assessments and integrated ecosystem assessments. This information is necessary to effectively adapt management to mitigate the ecological, social, and economic impacts of major shifts in the productivity of living marine resources. Sufficient understanding of the influence of species interactions and their responses to environmental change is required to develop forecasts and assess the long-term impact of climate and fishing on marine ecosystems. The goal of the FATE program is to provide the information necessary to effectively forecast these changes in order to evaluate management strategies needed to sustain fisheries, while preserving ecosystem structure and function. In support of this goal, the FATE program was designed to accelerate the development of next generation decision analysis and forecasting tools. FATE is providing leading indicators of ecological and oceanographic change by supporting research on the functional relationships between environmental forcing, competition for prey, or predation on the growth, distribution or reproductive success of managed species. The ultimate measure of FATE success is the incorporation of indices and functional relationships in population dynamics models, ecosystem assessments, and evaluation of fishing and climate forcing on marine resources that can be used to inform mangers of the implications of their actions. FATE supports applied science with a focus on ecosystem indicators and forecasting tools that can be utilized to proved advice to managers. FATE accomplishes this through a core team of scientists distributed among NMFS research centers and projects selected from an annual request for proposals. This report compiles the individual annual reports of the three full time FATE scientists and the nine projects that received funding in FY 2008 and conducted research through FY 2009. In addition, eleven new projects received funding starting in FY 2009 as a result of the 2009 request for proposals. These eleven projects did not submit an annual report for 2009, as they have just been initiated, but are listed at the back of this report. Finally, this report summarizes how FATE research products are being utilized to aid living marine resource management. More details on FATE and its products are available online at http://fate.nmfs.noaa.gov/ Table of Contents Page PIFSC FTE annual report – Evan Howell (NMFS-PIFSC) . 4 SWFSC-ERD FTE annual report – Andrew Leising (NMFS-SWFSC) . 7 SWFSC-FRD FTE annual report – Sam McClatchie (NMFS-SWFSC) . 12 07-01 Developing zooplankton and larval indices for use in Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) stock assessments - Jon Hare, William Overholtz, and David Richardson (NMFS-NEFSC), Kenneth Able (Rutgers Univ.) . 14 07-03 Decadal and basin scale oceanographic variability and pelagic fishery production in the Gulf of Mexico - William Richards and John Lamkin (NMFS-SEFSC), Andrew Bakun (Univ. Miami), Barbara Muhling (Murdoch Univ.) . 18 07-05 Developing recruitment forecasts for age structured flatfish stock assessments in the eastern Bering Sea based on models of larval dispersal - William Stockhausen, Thomas Wilderbuer and Janet Duffy-Anderson (NMFS-AKFSC), Albert Hermann (OAR-PMEL-JISAO) . 26 08-01 Development of biological and physical indices for stock evaluation in the Dry Tortugas pink shrimp fishery - Joan Browder (NMFS-SEFSC), Maria Criales, Claire Paris and Laurent Cherubin (Univ. Miami) . 47 08-02 Predictors for larval transport success and recruitment for cod in the Gulf of Maine - James Churchill and Loretta O’Brien (WHOI), Jeffery Runge (Univ. Maine), Jim Manning (NMFS-NEFSC) . 65 08-03 Developing ecological indicators for spatial fisheries management using ocean observatory define habitat characteristics in the Mid-Atlantic Bigth - John Manderson (NMFS-NEFSC), Josh Kohut (Rutgers Univ.), Matthew Oliver (Univ. Deleware) . 70 08-04 An integrated assessment of the physical forcing and biological response of the pelagic ecosystem of the northern California Current, focused on coastal pelagics and salmon - Bill Peterson and Robert Emmett (NMFS-NWFSC) . 89 08-06 Developing statistically robust IPCC climate model products for estuarine- dependent and anadromous fish stock assessments - Frank Schwing, Steve Lindley, Roy Mendelssohn and Steve Ralston (NMFS-SWFSC), Eric Danner and Bruno Sanso (Univ. California Santa Cruz), Jim Overland (OAR-PMEL), Muyin Wang (Univ. Washington- JISAO) . 95 2 08-07 Integrating indicators: co-variation, periodicity and amplitude of key biological signals from central Oregon and northern California - William Sydeman, Alec MacCall, Kyra Mills and Julie Thayer (Farallon Inst.), Steven Bograd and Frank Schwing (NMFS- SWFSC), Chet Grosch (Old Dominion Univ.) . 100 FATE projects initiated in FY 2009. 101 Summary of FATE products . 102 3 Project Title: PIFSC FATE FTE Principal Investigator: Evan Howell RECENT PROJECTS, PRODUCTS AND INDICATORS: Oceanographic effects on dive behavior of loggerhead turtles ascertained from satellite telemetry results: Data from 17 satellite telemetry tags affixed to juvenile loggerhead turtles were analyzed to assess the oceanographic effects on the dive behavior of these animals. Multivariate classifications of dive data revealed four major dive types, three associated with deeper, longer dives and one with shallow dives shorter in duration. Turtles exhibited seasonal and regional variability in these dive types. The results of this study are contained in a manuscript that is currently in internal NMFS review and will be submitted to the Journal of Animal Ecology. Results from these dive data for the central North Pacific during the first quarter of the year were also incorporated into the NOAA TurtleWatch product. The expected number of dives > 15 m were estimated for discrete sea surface temperature (SST) bins. These were combined with historic longline gear locations to model the potential number of dives to depths where longline gear may reside. The hypothesis was that these results would in explaining more of the variability in juvenile loggerhead bycatch occurred and be used to refine further the EOD TurtleWatch product. To test this hypothesis, a joint probability model was constructed using available fishery dependent (logbook) and independent (telemetry) data and compared with reported loggerhead interaction rates from 2005-2008. EOD TurtleWatch product (FY 2009 update): Background: The PIFSC TurtleWatch product is a map providing up-to-date information about the thermal habitat of loggerhead sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian Islands. Distributed daily both electronically and in paper format to individuals and entities in the Hawaii Longline Fishing industry. This product is aimed to minimize bycatch of loggerhead turtles by the longline fishery by indicating the SST values where the highest probability of a loggerhead turtle interaction may take place. Revision: The results from the satellite telemetry-based dive data were used to model the expected number of loggerhead interactions. The dive results showed that turtles have a fairly uniform distribution in regard to dive behavior across the North Pacific during the first quarter of the year. Due to the distribution of the data, the addition of the dive data did not greatly enhance the ability of the TurtleWatch model to predict the areas of loggerhead bycatch. Additional work using in-situ data from research cruises to this area in the first quarter will be combined with remotely-sensed environmental data to continue to understand the mechanisms for why bycatch may occur in this research and continually attempt to refine and enhance the TurtleWatch model. The TurtleWatch model was continually distributed to the industry and managers throughout the fishing season by the PIFSC as well as to fishers by the private company GeoEye. This product has been mentioned by PIFSC stakeholders as a flagship ecosystem indicator product produced by the center. 4 Modeling of the potential vulnerability of bigeye tuna in the Hawaii-based longline fishing grounds (Reported FY2008, Update FY2009): The manuscript detailing these results were accepted with minor revision by Progress in Oceanography as part of a larger body of work on dive behavior of bigeye tuna. The results of this work included the modeling of potential vulnerability of bigeye tuna to longline gear based on surface temperature, time and space. The results from this project were recently used by managers in addition to other factors to attempt to explain the decrease in catch rates in bigeye by the Hawaii-based pelagic longline fishery. Changes among the upper trophic levels in the central North Pacific subtropical gyre ecosystem, 1996-2006: This was collaborative work with Jeffrey Polovina and others within the center to research changes in the catch rates of the Hawaii-based longline fishery over the last 10 years. This study looked at time series analysis results for the 13 most abundant species caught in the deep-set Hawaii-based longline fishery over the past decade. These results provided evidence of a change at the top of the North Pacific subtropical ecosystem. Catch rates for apex predators