Research

PCCRC funded student Greg Merrill successfully defended his master's thesis!

In case you missed his live defense presentation, Greg Merrill recently successfully defended his master’s thesis. This project, with advisor Dr. Jennifer Burns, explored maternal foraging trip durations (MFTD) as an index of foraging conditions for northern fur seals in 3 colonies known to forage in 3 different oceanic domains around the Pribilof Islands.

If you would like to watch the presentation here is a link to the recorded presentation:

https://www.pccrc.org/defensepresentations/2019/5/2/greg-merrill-thesis-defense

New research published by Cunningham et al. investigates Chinook salmon survival

Project 15-01 investigated Chinook salmon survival with a life stage-structured statistical population dynamics model. The work is published in Global Change Biology. You can read more about the work by following the link in the citation below!

Cunningham, C.J., P.A.H. Westley, and M.D. Adkison. 2018. Signals of large scale climate drivers, hatchery enhancement, and marine factors in Yukon River Chinook salmon survival revealed with a Bayesian life history model. Global Change Biology 24(9): 4399–4416. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14315

New research published by Smith et al. describes functional properties of pollock roe

Project 16-03 proposed to develop alternative pollock roe product forms, but also lead to new insights into the physicochemical properties of Alaska walleye pollock. This research has been recently published in the Journal of Food Science and Technology. To find out more follow the link in the citation!

Anvari, M., B. Smith, C. Sannito, & Q.S.W. Fong. 2018. Characterization of rheological and physicochemical properties of Alaska walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) roe. Journal of Food Science and Technology 55(9): 3616–3624. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13197-018-3287-7

New work published by PCCRC research fellow Julie Nielsen

Julie Nielson recently published work on a method she and fellow researchers developed for characterizing activity and inferring survival of Pacific halibut based on accelerometer data from Pop-up Satellite Archival Tags (PSATs). The metrics developed in this project help researchers infer activity patterns and resultantly survival which may be extended to other species.

Nielsen, J.K., C.S. Rose, T. Loher, P. Drobny, A.C. Seitz, M.B. Courtney, and J. Gauvin. 2018. Characterizing activity and assessing bycatch survival of Pacific halibut with accelerometer pop-up satellite archival tags. Animal Biotelemetry 6:10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40317-018-0154-2

2017 PCCRC Symposium in Anchorage Alaska

On the 26th of January the PCCRC board and researchers from around Alaska gathered in the Quadrant room of the Captain Cook hotel in Anchorage Alaska. Principle investigators and their graduate students gave 30 minute presentations on the status of their projects. A total of 15 presentations (13 research projects and 2 graduate fellowships) were given on research topics ranging from zooplankton to salmon sharks!

This years symposium was held in Anchorage, Alaska.

This years symposium was held in Anchorage, Alaska.

Cheryl Barnes gives a presentation on her doctoral research entitled 'Ecological interactions among groundfish predators in the Gulf of Alaska'. Photo by Elizabeth Figus

Cheryl Barnes gives a presentation on her doctoral research entitled 'Ecological interactions among groundfish predators in the Gulf of Alaska'. Photo by Elizabeth Figus