Headlines for 2008

Two key challenges for the BEST-BSIERP collaborative program are to effectively share information across projects within the program, and to share key findings with colleagues and the public outside of the program.

To address those challenges, and to build a foundation for later synthesis of program results, the BEST-BSIERP Science Advisory Board requested “headlines” from each BEST-BSIERP project, highlighting the most important and/or novel result(s) from 2008 results.

Response has been great, with most projects submitting headlines in time for the keynote presentation that the Science Advisory Board co-chairs, Mike Sigler and Rodger Harvey, delivered at the 2009 Alaska Marine Science Symposium. Their presentation summarized and integrated highlights of BEST-BSIERP results in 2008; it can be downloaded here. Please contact Mike Sigler or Rodger Harvey for more details or with any questions.

We have compiled all of the 2008 headlines in the matrix below, so that principal investigators or anyone interested in the Bering Sea Project can obtain a high-level view of the 2008 program results. NOTE: If your project headline is listed as "missing", please deliver your headline to Mike or Rodger. Please contact Tom Van Pelt if you have general questions or wish to make a correction to your headline.

Focal Area	Project Component	Code	Principal Investigators	Headline
Moorings Atmosphere, Ice + Ocean Find out more about these focal areas	Biophysical moorings (4)	B52	Stabeno, Whitledge, Napp	2008 - A very cold Bering Sea; Extensive cold pool
	Surface water iron	BEST	Wu	Missing
	Stratification and nutrients	BEST	Weingartner, Aagaard	Fresh coastal waters leak onto the middle Bering Sea shelf in the fall
	Hydrographic structure and nutrients	BEST	Sonnerup, Whitledge, Mordy	Physical forcing results in marked north-south gradients in hydrography, nutrients and chlorophyll
Benthos Zooplankton + Lower Trophic Levels Find out more about these focal areas	Sea ice algae	BEST	Gradinger, Bluhm, Iken	Sea ice communities were blooming in March to May 2008
	Shelf sediment denitrification	BEST	Devol, Shull	Missing
	Nitrogen supply for new production	BEST	Sambrotto, Sigman	New and primary productivity enhanced near divergent and melting ice floes
	Primary production and sea ice	BEST	Moran, Lomas	Regional variability in primary productivity and particle export observed in the Bering Sea in 2008
	Benthic ecosystem response	BEST	Grebmeier, Cooper	Infauna and epifauna increase northward in Bering Sea
	Carbon export	B56	Moran	Regional variability in primary productivity and particle export observed in the Bering Sea in 2008
	Epi-benthos	B57	Grebmeier	Infauna and epifauna increase northward in Bering Sea
	Chlorophyll	BEST	Sonnerup, Stockwell, Whitledge	Missing
	Mesozooplankton assessment	BEST	Coyle, Pinchuk	Observations in June-July 2008 revealed different zooplankton communities across the shelf. The Inner Domain was dominated by the neritic copepod Pseudocalanus and Cnidarians (hydromedusae); the Middle Domain was populated by the large copepod Calanus marshallae and the arrow worm Sagitta elegans; the Outer Domain near the Pribilofs was dominated by larger oceanic copepods, both in terms of abundance and biomass (Metridia, Neocalanus, Eucalanus).
	Mesozooplankton-Microbial food web	BEST	Sherr, Ashjian, Campbell, Sherr	Microzooplankton were abundant and important as herbivores and food for zooplankton during spring sea ice conditions; Ice algae were important food for most zooplankton and helped to jump-start the reproductive season
	Trophic role of euphausiids	BEST	Harvey, Lessard	Ice algae are a significant food source for krill in early spring; Age distribution of Bering Sea euphausiids using neural oxidation products (lipofuscins)
	Micro-zooplankton	B55	Stoecker	Microzooplankton grazing removes ~84% of phytoplankton daily growth in SE Bering Sea during summer.
	Ichthyoplankton surveys	B53	Hillgruber, Duffy-Anderson, Napp, Matarese, Eisner	Location of highest walleye pollock larvae abundances shifted seasonally
	Seasonal bioenergetics	B54	Heintz	YOY pollock start winter with low energy reserves in warm years
Fishes + Forage Species Trophic Interactions Find out more about these focal areas	Acoustic survey	B58	Wilson	Most juvenile and adult pollock northwest of the Pribilof Islands
	Surface trawl survey	B90	Farley	Age-0 pollock prey (large zooplankton) fits cool year pattern
	Surface trawl survey acoustics	B59	Horne, Parker-Stetter, Farley	Jellyfish dominate the pelagic biomass during the surface trawl survey (BASIS)
	Bottom trawl survey (epi-benthic)	B91	Lauth	Most juvenile and adult pollock northwest of the Pribilof Islands
	Pollock & cod distribution	B60	Ciannelli, Bailey	Eggs provide clues about pollock spawning distributions
	Functional foraging response	B61	Aydin, Farley	Missing
	Forage distribution & ocean conditions	B62	Hollowed, Wilson, Kotwicki, DeRobertis, Ressler, Cokelet	Besides ice, North Pacific currents also structure the SE Bering during winter; Euphausiids less abundant where pollock most common
	Fish, birds & mammals	B68	Mueter, Kruse	Pollock survival low when water column stratification strong
	Hot spot persistence	B92	Sigler, Kuletz, Wilson	No 2008 results to report
Seabirds Find out more about this focal area	Seabird telemetry	B63	Irons, Roby, Paredes	Contrary to expectations, kittiwakes flew far offshore and fed on myctophids, while murres aggregated over the Pribilof Canyon and fed on euphausiids. The foraging tracks of seabirds from St. Paul and St. George did not overlap.
	Seabird broad-scale distribution	B64	Kuletz	Spatial distributions of kittiwakes and murres similar in 2007 and 2008; Large (300,000 – 350,000) spectacled eider flock likely comprising most of the worldwide population observed near St. Lawrence Island in March 2008
	Seabird colony-based	B65	Byrd	Black-legged kittiwake hatch dates earliest recorded
Predator-Prey Dynamics Find out more about this focal area	Patch Dynamics Pribilofs and St. Lawrence Island	B67	Trites, Jay, Grebmeier, Benoit-Bird, Heppell, Irons, Byrd, Roby, Kitaysky, Kuletz	Northern fur seals fed throughout the Bering Sea during summer 2008 and did not travel to hot spots; At-sea distributions of murres, kittiwakes, fur seals differ near Pribilof Islands; Patches of euphausiids and age-0 pollock near Pribilof Islands; Less nutritional stress for planktivorous seabirds and more nutritional stress for piscivorous seabirds with later ice retreat; Expansive St. Lawrence Island polynya may have decreased walrus foraging opportunities
Predator-Prey Dynamics Find out more about this focal area	Patch Dynamics Bogoslof	B77	Trites, Benoit-Bird, Heppell, Irons, Byrd, Roby, Kitaysky, Kuletz	No 2008 results to report
Marine Mammals Find out more about this focal area	Whale broad-scale distribution	B66	Friday, Moore, Zerbini, Clapham	Distributions of fin and humpback whales similar to previous years
Humans / Local + Traditional Knowledge Find out more about this focal area	Local & traditional knowledge	B69	Sepez, Hunn, Huntington, Langdon, Zavadil, Fall	Subsistence harvests are high in the food web
	Nelson Island heritage	BEST	John, Fienup-Riordan	I hope that no one says down on the ocean, "I've learned the ocean." Before we have learned [to predict its conditions] we have reached this age.
Ecosystem Modeling Find out more about this focal area	Climate downscaling and LTL modeling	BEST	Bond, Curchister, Hedstrom, Gibson, Herrmann, Overland	Kerim will contact Georgina and Al
	Physical forcing	BEST	Zhang, Woodgate	Physical oceanography model (BESTMAS) simulated a decrease in M2 temperatures since 2005; M2 temperatures in 2007-2008 were as low as in the mid 1970s
	Forage euphausiid (FEAST)	B70	Aydin	Will send something first week of January
	Behavioral foraging	B74	Mangel	No 2008 results to report
	Biomass dynamics	B75	Mueter, Kruse	No 2008 results to report
	Integrate economic-ecological	B71	Dalton, Punt	No 2008 results to report
	Spatial fishery choices	B72	Haynie	No 2008 results to report
	Blended forecasts, Management strategy evaluation	B73	Punt	No 2008 results to report

Acronyms Revealed!
Hover your mouse pointer over acronyms to learn what they stand for.