A group of PFRP PIs, supporters and collaborators met after dinner on Tuesday, May 20, during the 59th Lake Arrowhead Tuna Conference. The main topics for discussion were:
1. PFRP Financial Situation (down, but far from out).
2. Dates and topic for the November PI meeting (see below).
3. Retirement of the current PFRP Manager and
recruitment of a replacement.
Save the date:
November 18 - 19, 2008 (exact dates to be determined) at the Imin Center on the UH Campus. For more information see the
meeting website.
Meeting Topic:
Tuna forage and inserting synoptic estimates of mid-trophic level biomass into Integrated Ocean Observing Systems
The PFRP has supported several projects on tuna trophodynamics and diets. These projects and the results of many other projects is beginning to give us a pretty good idea of what tuna eat under different conditions and at different places. On the other hand, we have a very poor understanding of the abundance, distribution and dynamics of forage organisms. Further it seems that gelatinous zooplankton have an important role in the supporting top predators from tunas to turtles.
Specific points of discussion were proposed:
1. What is the geographical overlap of gelatinous zooplankton and predators such as marine turtles, ocean sunfish?
2. Can acoustic methods be used to estimate the abundance of gelatinous zooplankton?
3. What role to larvacians play in supporting
trennkost predators? (
Oikopleura is often reported in stomach contants.)
4. What are the sources of information on the distribution and abundance of tuna forage? Data from the 1950's and 1960's ESTROPAC, ESTROPIC, and POFI cruises were suggested as a good starting place.
5. Can estimates of forage abundance be matched with the tuna forage data base that Tim Essington is compiling?
6. Can we help promote the CLIOTOP MAAS project and insert large synoptic observations of mid-trophic level organisms into the global integrated ocean observing system?
Invited speakers:
1. Monty Graham, Dauphin Island Sea Lab & Univ. So. Alabama
2. Robert Cowen, Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, Miami
3. Nils Olav Handegard, Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway
4. Elliot Hazen, Duke Marine Lab, Beaufort, NC
Thoughts from Bill Bayliff on oceanographic surveys in the EPO:
The following
IATTC Bulletins may be of interest: 2(4); 3(9); 4(5): 5(4); 8(2); 8(9); 9(3); 10(2).
Maybe somebody should look at the Literature Cited sections of the papers based on the POFI, EASTROPIC, EASTROPAC surveys, and more recent papers, and assemble a bibliography on the subject.Such a bibliography would be helpful to the attendees in discussions ofwhat has already been done and what needs to be done.
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