The West Coast groundfish industry collapsed in 2000, but it recovered through the efforts of regulators, scientists and the fleet. Now it is working to rebuild the market and reconnect with a formerly active fishing ground along Oregon’s nearshore. In this report, we define nearshore as the shelf that extends...
Selecting an appropriate and efficient sampling strategy in biological surveys is a major concern in ecological research, particularly when the population abundance and individual traits of the sampled population are highly structured over space. Multi-stage sampling designs typically present sampling sites as primary units. However, to collect trait data, such...
The juvenile demersal fish assemblage along the Pacific Northwest coast has received little attention relative to adult life history stages since pioneering work in the 1970s. Increasing severity of hypoxia along the Oregon coast in recent years has prompted investigations into the response of biota in this region. We used...
Nearshore hypoxia along the coast of Oregon and Washington is a seasonal phenomenon that has generated concern among scientists studying this temperate upwelling ecosystem. These waters are affected by coastal upwelling-induced hypoxia mainly during late summer and fall, but the effects of low oxygen levels on fish and invertebrate communities,...
Understanding responses of marine species to temperature variability is essential to predict impacts of future climate change in the oceans. Most ectotherms are expected to adjust their behavior to avoid extreme temperatures and minimize acute changes in body temperature. However, measuring such behavioral plasticity in the wild is challenging. Combining...
Various ocean-climate models driven by increased greenhouse gases and higher temperatures predict a decline in oceanic dissolved oxygen (DO) as a result of greater stratification, reduced ventilation below the thermocline, and decreased solubility at higher temperatures. Since spreading of low oxygen waters is underway and predicted to increase, understanding impacts...
We examined the feasibility of using a video beam trawl system to assess behavioral responses of juvenile flatfishes in relation to co-occurring habitat features, most notably dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations. Sixteen samples were collected along a cross shelf transect in the central Oregon coast during summer 2008. We found that...
The Bering Sea responds rapidly to atmospheric perturbations and over the past several decades has experienced extreme variability in both its physical and biological characteristics. These changes can
impact organisms that inhabit the region, particularly marine fishes, as normal current patterns to which
reproductive habits are tuned can be disrupted,...
Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) is an economically and ecologically important species in the southeastern
Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, yet little is known about the spawning dynamics of Pacific cod in
these regions. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a gross anatomical maturity key for Pacific cod
to describe...
Seascape ecology is an emerging discipline focused on understanding how features of the marine habitat influence the
spatial distribution of marine species. However, there is still a gap in the development of concepts and techniques for its
application in the marine pelagic realm, where there are no clear boundaries delimitating...