"The Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering (RACE) Division of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) has been conducting standardized bottom trawl surveys of the continental shelf and upper slope of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) and Aleutian Islands (AI) since 1980. The quality and specificity of field identifications for many taxa have fluctuated over the history of the surveys due to changing priorities and resources. Historical trends in identification quality for the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands surveys have not been previously documented. This report includes an identification confidence matrix for all fishes and invertebrates identified from the GOA and AI surveys from 1980 through 2011. The matrix lists a confidence level for each taxon by survey year along with its frequency of occurrence on that survey and the number of corroborating voucher collections. The matrix is intended to serve as a general guideline for data users interested in assessing the reliability of historical species identifications on these surveys."

Public Domain