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Advancing model-based essential fish habitat descriptions for North Pacific species in the Aleutian Islands
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2022
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[PDF-44.06 MB]
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Description:Advancing model-based descriptions of essential fish habitat (EFH) for federally managed fishes and invertebrates is a key component of the 5-year review process mandated for EFH information in Fishery Management Plans. The analyses presented here demonstrate refinements and advances built on the habitat-based species distribution modeling (SDM) approach established in the previous EFH 5-year review. All of the ensemble SDMs constructed for Aleutian Island species in this present work predict EFH Level 2 information (habitat-related abundance), meeting a key objective of the EFH Research Plan for Alaska. We also met another objective of the Research Plan by introducing maps of EFH Level 3 information (habitat-related vital rates) for settled early juvenile walleye pollock in the Aleutian Islands for the first time. In the present work, we describe 53 EFH maps in the Aleutian Islands, accounting for 24 North Pacific groundfish species with up to three life stages per species as well as for two crab species and one octopus. The SDM ensemble approach achieved good predictive performance over a variety of species, and it was particularly effective for flatfish species. SDM predictions were less accurate for species with few occurrences in the trawl survey (e.g., invertebrate) or highly variable trawl catches (e.g., Atka mackerel). In general, geographic position, bottom depth and bottom currents were the most influential covariate predictors in the SDMs. The maps and descriptions presented here represent the “best available science” to form a basis for assessing anthropogenic impacts on habitats in Alaska and are extensible to other fishery management and ecosystem information needs. Recommended future research includes developing methods for combining disparate data sources to expand spatial and seasonal coverage of Alaska species distribution and abundance and increasing the scope of EFH research to address rapidly changing environmental conditions in the region.
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Rights Information:CC0 Public Domain
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