Vol. XXV, No. 9
September 2005
Megan Agy, an ecologist at the National Sea Grant Office in Silver Spring, Maryland, will give presentations on National Sea Grant graduate fellowships to students and faculty in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, Alaska, this month. Agy was a Sea Grant Knauss fellow in 2002, in the office of Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey. She earned her master's degree in resource ecology and management at the University of Michigan. Agy is Alaska Sea Grant's program monitor at the National Sea Grant Office.
Agy will speak at UAF in Fairbanks on September 20 in 401 IARC, at 3:30 pm. She will give a talk on September 23 at the UAF Juneau Center, 221 Anderson Building, at 2 pm. She will be at UAA in Anchorage on September 16. Alaska Sea Grant and the National Sea Grant Program encourage University of Alaska students to apply for the fellowships.
The Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship is well suited for students with an interest in national policy decisions affecting coastal and ocean resources. The Knauss Fellowship involves spending a year in the Washington, D.C., area in an executive or legislative position. The Sea Grant Fisheries Fellowship is for Ph.D. students in population dynamics and marine resource economics. Fisheries Fellowship positions in NOAA laboratories can be funded for up to three years. The Industry Sea Grant Fellowship provides support for graduate students whose research and development focus is of interest to a specific industry and company. The Sea Grant program and the company work together on a project from beginning to end. For more information on the fellowships see http://www.seagrant.noaa.gov/funding/fellowships.html, or contact Michele Frandsen at (907) 474-7088.
Elizabeth Calvert, Alaska Sea Grant–funded graduate student at the SFOS Juneau Center, participated in an international research cruise led by Rolf Gradinger aboard the USCGC Healy in June–July 2005. The Healy, a 420-foot icebreaker, took scientists to a largely unexplored region of the Arctic Ocean that is covered by ice most of the year. The purpose of the cruise was to explore the sea ice ecosystem of the deep Canada Basin. The exploration is especially important in face of global changes that could shift the extent of ice cover. Science teams studied the benthos, water column, and sea ice, and sampled at fourteen stations during the 30-day cruise.
Calvert was part of the science diving team, studying the underside of sea ice as habitat for amphipod species and arctic cod, major players in the sea ice food chain leading to ringed seals and polar bears. At each station, the diving team recorded amphipod abundances within pressure ridge structures and in floe areas, quantified arctic cod and measured the size of wedges that they occupy, documented sea ice structure and animals with video and still photography, and collected organisms for stable isotope analysis.
Pressure ridges, formed when two ice floes push together, cause ice to move both above and below the surface, forming visible ridges across the ice landscape. The science diving team found that the abundance of amphipods and arctic cod, and the diversity of amphipods, was greater within ridge areas than in the less structured floe habitat. Because previous research had focused on floes, the abundance of these organisms may have been largely underestimated.
ASG published the book Biological Field Techniques for Lithodid Crabs, by Bill Donaldson and Susie Byersdorfer. Efforts such as this book on standardizing lithodid data collection promise to improve fishery management. Geared to fishery observers, shoreside samplers, shellfish researchers, and fishermen, the book is illustrated with line drawings, maps, and color photos, and is printed on waterproof paper. Topics include taxonomy, life history, distribution, anatomy, and diseases. Byersdorfer is a biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the agency responsible for managing the crab fishery. Donaldson is a retired ADFG biologist.
ASG will organize a Wakefield fisheries symposium on "Resiliency of Gadid Stocks to Fishing and Climate Change," to be held in late October 2006. Gordon Kruse is chair of the organizing committee. To make sure you are on the mailing list to receive the call for papers in fall 2005, contact Sherri Pristash at fyconf@uaf.edu.
The Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program, North Pacific Research Board, Alaska Ocean Observing System, and Alaska SeaLife Center are holding an open house Monday, September 12, 2005, from 4–6 pm, at 1007 West 3rd Ave., Suite 100, in Anchorage.
Alaska Sea Grant will host a dinner in honor of National Sea Grant director Ron Baird, Monday, September 12, at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. Baird is in Anchorage for the American Fisheries Society (AFS) annual meeting. Alaska Sea Grant Advisory Committee members will also attend the dinner.
Alaska Sea Grant has donated 50 pounds of Dungeness crabs, and the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission has donated 100 pounds, for the AFS opening social event on Sunday, September 11. In addtion ASG is donating 100 dozen oysters from Metlakatla, Alaska.
Unalaska MAP agent Reid Brewer organized the Aleutian Life Forum (ALF), a three-day conference on the marine life and environment of the Aleutians, held at the Grand Aleutian Hotel in Unalaska in August. ALF focused on lessons learned in responding to the Selendang Ayu oil spill. The conference was attended by local residents and many of those involved in the response from outside the region. As part of ALF, Dolly Garza led beach walks in the Unalaska area and gave a presentation on edible seaweed at Culture Night. Kurt Byers showed the video Ocean Fury: Tsunamis in Alaska at ALF, took photos, and set up an educational publication exhibit. Alaska Sea Grant will publish a conference proceedings book in December 2005.
Rick Steiner was a featured presenter at the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Roundtable in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Steiner also gave a presentation on "Shipping Safety and Protection of National Wildlife Refuges" to the National Wildlife Refuge Association annual meeting in Homer, Alaska.
Paula Cullenberg and Quentin Fong published the paper "Wild Salmon Policy" in the Congressional briefing book The 2007 Farm Bill: Policy Options and Consequences, produced by the Farm Foundation. In addition, Fong was a coauthor on Policies and Priority Actions for Sustainable Mariculture Development in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, no. 2005-4, Coastal Resource Center, University of Rhode Island.
Fong assisted Sun Kim, project manager of Asian Trade, Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, in hosting a Republic of China (Taiwan) seafood purchasing delegation in Anchorage. Fong also made a presentation to the Alaska Latino Women's Association, "Profit/Loss Analysis of the Food Concession at the 2005 Kodiak Crab Festival."
Ray RaLonde directed a project to investigate the prevalence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in shellfish and environmental samples from Prince William Sound. With $5,000 from the UA President's Special Project Fund and $7,000 from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), RaLonde helped oyster farmers with temperature monitoring and product testing. Over 150 samples were tested, including water, plankton, sediment, intertidal bivalves, oysters, oyster catch feces, and sea otter feces.
Terry Reeve has been working with Western Alaska communities on salmon value adding, including fish smoking in Akiachak and processing in Kaltag. Reeve's experience with fish processing enables him to help local residents at all stages from filling out DEC forms to shipping samples to markets. Reeve also held workshops in Bethel on how to act as a catcher-seller of fish.