Proposals for FY 2011 essential fish habitat (EFH) recently were funded. Project selection for EFH research is based on research priorities from the EFH Research Implementation Plan for Alaska. Approximately $500,000 is spent on about ten EFH research projects each year. Research priorities are
Coastal areas facing development
Characterization of habitat utilization and productivity
Sensitivity, impact, and recovery of disturbed benthic habitat
Validation and improvement of habitat impacts model
Seafloor mapping
The Habitat and Ecological Processes Research (HEPR) team completed a scientific rating of the 2011 proposals in fall 2010. NMFS Alaska Regional Office Acting Deputy Regional Administrator Jon Kurland and HEPR Program Leader Mike Sigler agreed on rankings based on the scientific review and management priorities. Similar to last year, habitat recovery rate proposals were given higher management priority. The management prioritization generally followed the science ranking but a few changes were made to reflect the relevance of the proposals for fishery management decisions.
Principal Investigators
Titles
Funding
Ryer, Spencer, Iseri, Ottmar, Copeman
Determinants of juvenile tanner crab growth from different nursery embayments
$ 83,000
Malecha, Shotwell, Amman
Recruitment and response to damage of an Alaskan gorgonian coral
$ 16,700
Laurel, Stoner
The role of benthic habitat in larval rock sole settlement dynamics
$ 42,740
Yeung, Yang
Quantifying flatfish habitat quality in the eastern Bering Sea by infauna prey density
$ 124,000
Rose, McEntire
Collection of seafloor imagery during AFSC bottom trawl surveys
$ 11,900
Johnson, Thedinga, Lindeberg
Coastal fishes of Alaska: a synthesis of over a decade of nearshore marine surveys
$ 39,000
Wilson, Rooper
Low-cost multibeam mapping to support habitat based groundfish assessment and deepwater coral research in the Gulf of Alaska
