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Some of the largest submarine canyons in the world incise the eastern Bering Sea shelf break, including Bering, Pribilof, Zhemchug, Pervenets and Navarin canyons. In 2012, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) received testimony from environmental organizations to protect coral, spong...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.359.8811 http://www.alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/npfmc/PDFdocuments/conservation_issues/BSHC/BeringSeaCanyons_a_513.pdf |
| Summary: | Some of the largest submarine canyons in the world incise the eastern Bering Sea shelf break, including Bering, Pribilof, Zhemchug, Pervenets and Navarin canyons. In 2012, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) received testimony from environmental organizations to protect coral, sponge and other benthic habitat of fish and crab species in two of these canyons (Pribilof and Zhemchug). In response to this testimony, the NPFMC requested that the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center analyze the distribution of fishes and benthic invertebrates and the vulnerability of their habitat to fishing activities. We compiled data from the eastern Bering Sea that included trawl survey data on fish and invertebrate distributions and observations of ocean conditions and benthic habitat. These data were analyzed using multivariate techniques to determine if the two canyons are distinguishable from the adjacent continental slope. The potential for fishing effects on coral and sponge was assessed with spatial modeling of historical fishing effort, coral and sponge distributions and an index of their vulnerability to physical damage. Pribilof and Zhemchug canyons do show some distinguishing physical characteristics from the adjacent slope such as lower oxygen and pH and higher turbidity, but none based on biological characteristics (i.e., fish, coral and sponge distributions). These analyses imply that Pribilof and Zhemchug canyons are not biologically unique. Instead the major variables structuring the communities of fish and invertebrates on the eastern Bering Sea slope appear to be depth and latitude rather than submarine canyons. Corals were predicted to occur predominantly along the eastern Bering Sea slope, whereas sea whips were predicted to occur predominantly along the outer continental shelf. Sponges were mixed, with about two- |
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