Q&A: Marine Ecosystems Research at the USGS Alaska Science Center Active
The USGS Alaska Science Center is a leader and collaborator in marine ecosystems research on topics ranging from ocean bottom-dwelling invertebrates and small pelagic forage fish (food for Pacific walrus, sea otters, and marine birds) to polar bears (an apex predator in the Arctic). Here, we highlight current research by the USGS Alaska Science Center that focuses on marine ecosystems of Alaska.
Each January, the Alaska Marine Science Symposium takes place in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting provides a forum for sharing recent marine science information from the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea, and Arctic regions of Alaska. In this Q&A, we summarize recent marine ecosystems research that the USGS Alaska Science Center has conducted over the past year. To keep up with all the latest USGS research news, check out our Weekly Findings page.
Return to USGS Alaska Q&A Series
Arctic Region – New findings in 2023
Polar bears: The USGS routinely produces forecasts of wildlife populations and ecosystems to inform management agencies of likely future conditions. An updated circumpolar population model for polar bears found that polar bear populations will continue to experience increasing probability of decline throughout the 21st century, consistent with the previous two model generations. Another recent study examined the triggers associated with the increasingly larger proportion of bears that are summering onshore in northern Alaska. The study found that storms and sustained high winds may force polar bears to land. Additionally, polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea appear more tolerant of poor-quality sea ice habitat.
Pacific walrus: Declines in Arctic sea ice has led to an increase in vessel traffic in the Bering and Chukchi seas. The USGS produced an evaluation of methods to measure the effects of marine vessel exposure on Pacific walrus behavior in the Chukchi Sea. Additional work on Pacific walrus in 2023 included new data releases of satellite imagery and ground-based camera photos of walrus haulouts to provide near-real-time monitoring of walrus herds and mortalities associated with the haulouts.
Coastal fish: The USGS completed a study on how coastal fish community composition in the Beaufort Sea is changing over time and what this means for fish available for subsistence harvest.
Arctic Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Polar bears: The USGS continues to work with Indigenous, U.S., and Canadian collaborators on an updated abundance estimate for the Southern and Northern Beaufort Sea subpopulations of polar bear based on biopsy dart samples collected over the past few years. Additionally, the USGS and collaborators are working on an assessment of the potential impacts of an autumn oil spill on polar bears summering on land in northern Alaska, identifying indicators of polar bear population status in areas of sea ice loss, estimating levels of pathogen exposure in polar bears over the past 30 years, and assessing the energetic consequences of summering on land.
Pacific walrus: A second year of cruises will take place in 2024 in the Bering and Chukchi seas to estimate the population size and trend of Pacific walrus and new aerial drone work will be conducted by USGS in northwestern Alaska to monitor body condition and improve satellite imagery interpretation of walrus abundance at coastal haulouts. Additionally, new methods to assess the population consequences of disturbance and climate change for Pacific walrus and the sustainability of current and future harvest have been developed to aid in understanding these factors on walrus population dynamics.
Coastal fish: The USGS completed a third year of data collection to identify potential causes of population declines in breeding red-throated loons along the Beaufort Sea coast. This study will evaluate the nearshore marine feeding areas of breeding adult red-throated loons and assess the response of loon reproductive success to nest predators and contaminants. Additionally, a third year of aerial surveys will be conducted in 2024 by the USGS and collaborators to estimate breeding populations of red-throated and Pacific loons along the Beaufort Sea coast in northern Alaska.
Aleutian and Bering Sea Region – New findings in 2023
Pacific salmon: Salmon are cold-water fish that increasingly encounter freshwater temperatures warm enough to be stressful (above 64 °F), even in Alaska. The USGS and collaborators have developed a heat stress test for salmon, that works much like a test from a medical or veterinary setting and determines if a fish is experiencing heat stress without harming the fish.
Seabirds and marine mammals: The USGS produced a new update (version 4.1) to the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database (NPPSD). The NPPSD contains survey transect data designed and conducted by numerous partners to census seabirds and marine mammals at sea. The NPPSD version 4.1 contains data from over 486,000 transect segments collected over the span of 50 years and includes observations of over 20 million birds of 258 species and over 380,000 mammals of 41 species. USGS worked with the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and ABR, Inc. to develop a robust data-logging application designed to collect at-sea data of marine birds and mammals. SeaLog is Windows 10 and 11 compatible, highly customizable, and provides user designed maps to allow visual feedback of observations.
Aleutian and Bering Sea Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Harmful Algal Toxins: The USGS will continue to aid in the response to wildlife mortalities that may be caused by harmful algal toxins in the Arctic and subarctic. USGS researchers gave an invited presentation at the Strait Science Series about ongoing research on harmful algal toxins in Alaska seabirds. The USGS Alaska Science Center maintains algal toxin testing capabilities and has provided our collaborators with assessments of seabirds, fish, and plankton samples. Ongoing research includes examining the distribution of these toxins in marine food webs, in seabirds, as well as investigating the effects of paralytic shellfish toxins on seabird behavior and health during experimental studies.
Eelgrass: A new study was started in 2023 to update maps of eelgrass at Izembek Lagoon, Alaska, using Sentinel-2 optical satellite imagery, and to examine how much change has taken place in the extent of eelgrass in the lagoon between 2006 and 2020. This study will complement multiple years of ground-truth data collected by USGS.
Gulf of Alaska Region – New findings in 2023
Sablefish: Sablefish is an economically valuable commercial groundfish species in Alaska and the population is assessed annually by NOAA. Age-0 sablefish are a primary prey species for seabirds at Middleton Island that are poorly sampled by most fisheries surveys. A new USGS data release and report quantifies age-0 sablefish growth and size annually (based on seabird diet samples) for NOAA to provide an early indicator of recruitment potential and to help inform management decisions by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
Seabirds: The USGS and partners developed new tools for modeling the seasonal distribution and abundance of seabirds in lower Cook Inlet over nearly 50 years of marine bird survey data archived in the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database (NPPSD). This work is currently being used to update marine bird Environmental Resource Indices in offshore energy development regions for the first time in 20 years. Other recent work from the NPPSD found that migratory shearwater and tufted puffin abundance has declined since the 1970's, consistent with observations in other parts of their range.
Gulf Watch Alaska: The Pacific marine heatwave of 2014–2016 was a long-lasting temperature disturbance that occurred throughout the North Pacific region. The USGS and partners conducted summer and winter coastline surveys of marine birds in the northern Gulf of Alaska from 2006 to 2022 and found that benthic feeding marine birds, consisting largely of sea ducks and shorebirds, did not show a strong response to the heatwave, unlike significant effects demonstrated by fish eating seabirds.
Sea otters: The USGS contributed to an updated population assessment for sea otters in Southeast Alaska. Long-term studies of sea otter population dynamics and ecosystem effects in Glacier Bay National Park have revealed many important insights into sea otter ecology and conservation. USGS and collaborators also found that distribution and abundance of butter clams, a main sea otter prey, was related to environmental variables before sea otters occupied the bay.
Sea ducks: Several recent papers have described migration patterns in sea ducks tagged with satellite transmitters, including those marked in the Gulf of Alaska. These contribute to our understanding of how to define management units, identify important habitats, and effects of changing climate conditions on migration.
Gulf of Alaska Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Lower Cook Inlet: USGS continued work linking seabird and forage fish status and trends to changes in the marine environment in lower Cook Inlet, as well as modeling efforts to support oil spill risk analysis and planning in areas with offshore oil and gas, shipping and renewable energy development. Additionally, researchers will begin new work, at the request of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, on fish and invertebrate distribution and abundance in the lower Cook Inlet region that can be used to support a multi-species ecosystem model for Cook Inlet.
Gulf Watch Alaska: USGS and collaborators continue to conduct marine monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska, as part of the Gulf Watch Alaska program. The USGS is playing a leading role in pelagic and nearshore marine ecosystem monitoring, data distribution, and synthesis efforts.
Sea otters: USGS and partners continue to develop photo-based aerial survey methods and integrated data models for better understanding changes in distribution and abundance of sea otters at the request of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Polar Bear Research
Walrus Research
Nearshore Marine Ecosystem Research
Assessing heat stress in migrating Yukon River Chinook Salmon
Seabirds and Forage Fish Ecology
The USGS Alaska Science Center is a leader and collaborator in marine ecosystems research on topics ranging from ocean bottom-dwelling invertebrates and small pelagic forage fish (food for Pacific walrus, sea otters, and marine birds) to polar bears (an apex predator in the Arctic). Here, we highlight current research by the USGS Alaska Science Center that focuses on marine ecosystems of Alaska.
Each January, the Alaska Marine Science Symposium takes place in Anchorage, Alaska. The meeting provides a forum for sharing recent marine science information from the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea, and Arctic regions of Alaska. In this Q&A, we summarize recent marine ecosystems research that the USGS Alaska Science Center has conducted over the past year. To keep up with all the latest USGS research news, check out our Weekly Findings page.
Return to USGS Alaska Q&A Series
Arctic Region – New findings in 2023
Polar bears: The USGS routinely produces forecasts of wildlife populations and ecosystems to inform management agencies of likely future conditions. An updated circumpolar population model for polar bears found that polar bear populations will continue to experience increasing probability of decline throughout the 21st century, consistent with the previous two model generations. Another recent study examined the triggers associated with the increasingly larger proportion of bears that are summering onshore in northern Alaska. The study found that storms and sustained high winds may force polar bears to land. Additionally, polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea appear more tolerant of poor-quality sea ice habitat.
Pacific walrus: Declines in Arctic sea ice has led to an increase in vessel traffic in the Bering and Chukchi seas. The USGS produced an evaluation of methods to measure the effects of marine vessel exposure on Pacific walrus behavior in the Chukchi Sea. Additional work on Pacific walrus in 2023 included new data releases of satellite imagery and ground-based camera photos of walrus haulouts to provide near-real-time monitoring of walrus herds and mortalities associated with the haulouts.
Coastal fish: The USGS completed a study on how coastal fish community composition in the Beaufort Sea is changing over time and what this means for fish available for subsistence harvest.
Arctic Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Polar bears: The USGS continues to work with Indigenous, U.S., and Canadian collaborators on an updated abundance estimate for the Southern and Northern Beaufort Sea subpopulations of polar bear based on biopsy dart samples collected over the past few years. Additionally, the USGS and collaborators are working on an assessment of the potential impacts of an autumn oil spill on polar bears summering on land in northern Alaska, identifying indicators of polar bear population status in areas of sea ice loss, estimating levels of pathogen exposure in polar bears over the past 30 years, and assessing the energetic consequences of summering on land.
Pacific walrus: A second year of cruises will take place in 2024 in the Bering and Chukchi seas to estimate the population size and trend of Pacific walrus and new aerial drone work will be conducted by USGS in northwestern Alaska to monitor body condition and improve satellite imagery interpretation of walrus abundance at coastal haulouts. Additionally, new methods to assess the population consequences of disturbance and climate change for Pacific walrus and the sustainability of current and future harvest have been developed to aid in understanding these factors on walrus population dynamics.
Coastal fish: The USGS completed a third year of data collection to identify potential causes of population declines in breeding red-throated loons along the Beaufort Sea coast. This study will evaluate the nearshore marine feeding areas of breeding adult red-throated loons and assess the response of loon reproductive success to nest predators and contaminants. Additionally, a third year of aerial surveys will be conducted in 2024 by the USGS and collaborators to estimate breeding populations of red-throated and Pacific loons along the Beaufort Sea coast in northern Alaska.
Aleutian and Bering Sea Region – New findings in 2023
Pacific salmon: Salmon are cold-water fish that increasingly encounter freshwater temperatures warm enough to be stressful (above 64 °F), even in Alaska. The USGS and collaborators have developed a heat stress test for salmon, that works much like a test from a medical or veterinary setting and determines if a fish is experiencing heat stress without harming the fish.
Seabirds and marine mammals: The USGS produced a new update (version 4.1) to the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database (NPPSD). The NPPSD contains survey transect data designed and conducted by numerous partners to census seabirds and marine mammals at sea. The NPPSD version 4.1 contains data from over 486,000 transect segments collected over the span of 50 years and includes observations of over 20 million birds of 258 species and over 380,000 mammals of 41 species. USGS worked with the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and ABR, Inc. to develop a robust data-logging application designed to collect at-sea data of marine birds and mammals. SeaLog is Windows 10 and 11 compatible, highly customizable, and provides user designed maps to allow visual feedback of observations.
Aleutian and Bering Sea Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Harmful Algal Toxins: The USGS will continue to aid in the response to wildlife mortalities that may be caused by harmful algal toxins in the Arctic and subarctic. USGS researchers gave an invited presentation at the Strait Science Series about ongoing research on harmful algal toxins in Alaska seabirds. The USGS Alaska Science Center maintains algal toxin testing capabilities and has provided our collaborators with assessments of seabirds, fish, and plankton samples. Ongoing research includes examining the distribution of these toxins in marine food webs, in seabirds, as well as investigating the effects of paralytic shellfish toxins on seabird behavior and health during experimental studies.
Eelgrass: A new study was started in 2023 to update maps of eelgrass at Izembek Lagoon, Alaska, using Sentinel-2 optical satellite imagery, and to examine how much change has taken place in the extent of eelgrass in the lagoon between 2006 and 2020. This study will complement multiple years of ground-truth data collected by USGS.
Gulf of Alaska Region – New findings in 2023
Sablefish: Sablefish is an economically valuable commercial groundfish species in Alaska and the population is assessed annually by NOAA. Age-0 sablefish are a primary prey species for seabirds at Middleton Island that are poorly sampled by most fisheries surveys. A new USGS data release and report quantifies age-0 sablefish growth and size annually (based on seabird diet samples) for NOAA to provide an early indicator of recruitment potential and to help inform management decisions by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
Seabirds: The USGS and partners developed new tools for modeling the seasonal distribution and abundance of seabirds in lower Cook Inlet over nearly 50 years of marine bird survey data archived in the North Pacific Pelagic Seabird Database (NPPSD). This work is currently being used to update marine bird Environmental Resource Indices in offshore energy development regions for the first time in 20 years. Other recent work from the NPPSD found that migratory shearwater and tufted puffin abundance has declined since the 1970's, consistent with observations in other parts of their range.
Gulf Watch Alaska: The Pacific marine heatwave of 2014–2016 was a long-lasting temperature disturbance that occurred throughout the North Pacific region. The USGS and partners conducted summer and winter coastline surveys of marine birds in the northern Gulf of Alaska from 2006 to 2022 and found that benthic feeding marine birds, consisting largely of sea ducks and shorebirds, did not show a strong response to the heatwave, unlike significant effects demonstrated by fish eating seabirds.
Sea otters: The USGS contributed to an updated population assessment for sea otters in Southeast Alaska. Long-term studies of sea otter population dynamics and ecosystem effects in Glacier Bay National Park have revealed many important insights into sea otter ecology and conservation. USGS and collaborators also found that distribution and abundance of butter clams, a main sea otter prey, was related to environmental variables before sea otters occupied the bay.
Sea ducks: Several recent papers have described migration patterns in sea ducks tagged with satellite transmitters, including those marked in the Gulf of Alaska. These contribute to our understanding of how to define management units, identify important habitats, and effects of changing climate conditions on migration.
Gulf of Alaska Region – Ongoing work in 2023
Lower Cook Inlet: USGS continued work linking seabird and forage fish status and trends to changes in the marine environment in lower Cook Inlet, as well as modeling efforts to support oil spill risk analysis and planning in areas with offshore oil and gas, shipping and renewable energy development. Additionally, researchers will begin new work, at the request of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, on fish and invertebrate distribution and abundance in the lower Cook Inlet region that can be used to support a multi-species ecosystem model for Cook Inlet.
Gulf Watch Alaska: USGS and collaborators continue to conduct marine monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska, as part of the Gulf Watch Alaska program. The USGS is playing a leading role in pelagic and nearshore marine ecosystem monitoring, data distribution, and synthesis efforts.
Sea otters: USGS and partners continue to develop photo-based aerial survey methods and integrated data models for better understanding changes in distribution and abundance of sea otters at the request of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.