Changes in environmental conditions in marine ecosystems could directly or indirectly influence distribution, abundance, settlement, and size at settlement of flatfish. Understanding species-specific and age-specific responses to environmental variability is important for managing commercially important flatfish stocks. Slope-spawning flatfish whose offspring rely on extensive drift from the slope (spawning) to...
The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) is home to the most productive fisheries in the world. In 2019, 2.2 million metric tons of fish were shipped from Alaska to destinations all over the world (NOAA Fisheries, 2019). From 2014-2016 and, more recently, in 2019 the largest heatwaves in recorded history caused...
Intraseasonal oscillations in the atmosphere-ocean system can affect weather patterns and regional ecosystems. In turn, these oscillations can be affected by climate variability, resulting in additive and/or non-linear responses of regional ecosystems to climate forcing. In the Northern California Current, a strong correlation was identified between the location of the...
Ocean fronts represent productive regions of the ocean, but predator-prey interactions within these features are
poorly understood partially due to the coarse-scale and biases of net-based sampling methods. We used the In
Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS) to sample across a front near the Georges Bank shelf edge on two...
Differences in the chemical composition of calcified skeletal structures (e.g. shells, otoliths) have proven useful for reconstructing the environmental history of many marine species. However, the extent to which ambient environmental conditions can be inferred from the elemental signatures within the vertebrae of elasmobranchs (sharks, skates, rays) has not been...
Our oceans surround us, and we depend upon them for food, transportation, and recreation. They affect us daily as they shape our climate and rattle our world with unexpected events. Current headlines indicate that they are in flux and perhaps in trouble. Coral reefs are dying due to rising ocean...
Sea otters act as valuable indicators of ecosystem health and consume prey items that contain anthropogenic microparticles, including microplastics. Microplastic ingestion can exert a wide range of deleterious effects depending on the organism and plastic type. We investigated the ingestion of microparticles by wild sea otters (Enhydra lutris) in Alaska...
Oceanic uptake of rising anthropogenic CO₂ emissions has caused the emergence of ocean acidification as a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Along eastern boundary current systems, seawater is naturally acidified due to coastal upwelling of low pH seawater from depth. Compounded by ocean acidification, upwelling regions are expected to...