Understanding Apex Predator and Pelagic Fish Habitat Utilization in the California Current System by Integrating Animal Tracking With In Situ Oceanographic Observations

Abstract

The team assembled includes researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. Researchers from these organizations will be responsible for orchestrating simultaneous multi-species tagging efforts. Oceanographers from the Environmental Research Division (ERD) at NMFS will provide expertise in remote sensing of the Northeast Pacific oceanography. The integration and analysis of the diverse datasets requires the development of new software which is being developed by the NMFS, UCSC, and Stanford as well as researchers from Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) in Scotland. Using these software programs as well as others, we plan to map the oceanic habitats used by top predators in the California Current System (CCS). This will be done by examining both top down and bottom up processes, and predicting how climate variability impacts the distribution and utilization of oceanic habitats within the CCS. We are also developing methods that are required to integrate animal collected data into existing oceanographic databases.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 30, 2005
Accession Number
ADA572922

Entities

People

  • Barbara Block
  • Daniel P. Costa
  • Franklin B. Schwing
  • Steven J Bograd

Organizations

  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Animals
  • Birds
  • California
  • Climate Change
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Sets
  • Data Visualization
  • Databases
  • Environment
  • Habitats
  • Hot Spots
  • Marine Mammals
  • Observation
  • Oceanography
  • Oceans
  • Remote Sensing
  • Universities

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Marine Mammal Biology
  • Research Science/Academic Research