Eastern Bering Sea

Climate variability and change are expected to influence the seasonal cycle in North Pacific sub-arctic marine ecosystems. The hypothesis that timing of nesting and productivity of piscivorous seabirds [kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla and Rissa brevirostris) and murres (Uria aalge and Uria lomvia)] at the Pribilof Islands are related to variation in ocean climate as indexed by changes in sea-ice concentrations (SICs)

The ice-edge region of the southeast Bering Sea was studied in terms of the hydrographic regime, phytoplankton biomass, and primary productivity during the springs of 1975 through 1977. The results showed that a phytoplankton bloom occurs at the ice edge just a the ...

Water column pH and carbonate mineral saturation states were calculated from dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity data collected over the eastern Bering Sea shelf in the spring and summer of 2008. The saturation states (Ω) of the two most important carbonate minerals, calcite (Ωcalcite) and aragonite (Ωaragonite) were strongly coupled to terrestrial runoff from the Yukon and Kuskokwim

Modelled connectivity between Walleye Pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) spawning and age-0 nursery areas in warm and cold years with implications for juvenile survival. Adult and early life stage distributions of the commercially important demersal fish Walleye Pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) have varied in relation to the warm and cold environmental conditions on the eastern Bering Sea (EBS) shelf. Previous modelling studies indicate that transport alone does not account for the disparate juvenile distributions in warm and cold years, but that spawning locations are important. Our objective was to determine the potential connectivity of EBS pollock spawning areas with juvenile nursery areas between warm and cold years from an 18-year hindcast (1995 – 2012). We calculated the connectivity between larval sources and juvenile positions that were produced by a coupled biological-physical individual-based model that simulated transport, growth, and vertical behavior of pollock from the egg until the juvenile stage. Three connectivity patterns were seen in most simulations: along-isobaths to the northwest, self-retention, and transport around the Pribilof Islands. The major differences in connectivity between warm and cold years, more northwards in warm years and more off-shelf in cold years, mimicked wind-driven flow characteristics of those years that were related to winter mean zonal position of the Aleutian Low. Connectivity relationships were more sensitive to spatial alterations in the spawning areas in cold years, while they were more responsive to spawn timing shifts in warm years. The strongest connectivity to advantageous juvenile habitats originated in the well-known spawning areas, but also in a less well-studied region on the Outer Shelf. This northern Outer Shelf region emerged as a very large sink of pollock reaching the juvenile transition from all spawning sources, suggesting more thorough sampling across multiple trophic levels of this potentially important juvenile pollock nursery is needed.

Calls from North Pacific right whales ( Eubalaena,japonica) were recorded in the eastern Bering Sea during a visual and acoustic survey aboard the US Coast Guard buoy tender Sweetbrier, in July 1999. Calls were commonly detected to 20km, and in one case approximately 30km, via deployment of arrays of directional sonobuoys. Acoustic detections (clusters of right whale calls separated

To help define areas and ecological parameters critical to the survival and recovery of the remnant population of North Pacific right whales, habitat use was investigated by examining all available sighting and catch records in the south-eastern Bering Sea (SEBS) and Gulf of Alaska (GOA) over the past two centuries. 2. Based on re-analyses of commercial whaling records, search effort, and resultant catches and sightings, waters of the: (i) SEBS slope and shelf, (ii) eastern Aleutian Islands and (iii) GOA slope and abyssal plain were important habitat for North Pacific right whales through the late 1960s. 3. Since 1980, the only area where right whales have been seen consistently is on the SEBS middle shelf. However, acoustic detections and single sightings have been reported in all other regions except the SEBS slope and oceanic GOA (areas where little, if any, acoustic and visual effort has occurred). 4. Sightings since 1979 were in waters < 200 m deep which may simply reflect t...

Walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) is the target of one of the world's largest fisheries and is an important prey species in the eastern Bering Sea (EBS) ecosystem. Little is known about the potential effects of fishing on the school characteristics and spatial distribution of walleye pollock. Few dedicated research surveys have been conducted during pollock fishing seasons, so analysis of fishery data is the only feasible approach to study these potential effects. We used acoustic data col - lected continuously by one fishing vessel in January-February 2003, which operated north of Unimak Island. Results from comparisons between two fishing periods showed significant changes of pollock distribution at different scales. The schools were smaller and denser during the second period. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of schools became sparser, as evidenced by the lower frequency of schools per elementary distance sampling unit and the increase in average

As one of the major oceanic sinks of anthropogenic CO2, the Southern Ocean plays a critical role in the climate system. However, due to the scarcity of observations, little is known about physical and biological processes that control air-sea CO2 fluxes and how these processes might respond to climate change. It is well established that primary production is one of the major drivers of air-sea CO2 fluxes, consuming surface Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) during Summer. Southern Ocean primary production is though constrained by several limiting factors such as iron and light availability, which are both sensitive to mixed layer depth. Mixed layer depth is known to be affected by current changes in wind stress or freshwater fluxes over the Southern Ocean. But we still don't know how primary production may respond to anomalous mixed layer depth neither how physical processes may balance this response to set the seasonal cycle of air-sea CO2 fluxes. In this study, we investigate th...

The presence or absence of sea-ice over the Bering Sea influences the productivity of its waters as well as the regional climate of Beringia. Not only is the extent and distribution of sea-ice an important climate system feedback because of changes in albedo, it also has the potential to impact oceanographic and atmospheric circulation patterns by altering ocean stratification and