
Franz J. MueterUniversity of Alaska Fairbanks · College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS)
Franz J. Mueter
Ph.D.
About
174
Publications
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Introduction
I am the President’s Professor of Quantitative Fisheries and Ecosystems at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where I conduct research and teach courses in quantitative ecology and fisheries oceanography. My research focuses on the influence of climate variability and climate change on the recruitment and spatial dynamics of marine and anadromous fish and shellfish populations. Much of my current research is in the Arctic, in particular the life history and dynamics of Arctic gadids.
Additional affiliations
Education
September 1996 - December 1998
September 1994 - August 1999
August 1988 - August 1992
Publications
Publications (174)
Rapid climate change in high-latitude ecosystems presents a challenge to fisheries management, as ecosystems are exposed to novel climate conditions that might expose non-stationary climate-biology relationships. Recently, the eastern Bering Sea has experienced a series of warm years outside the range of previous observations, resulting in shifting...
Climate change is rapidly modifying biodiversity across the Arctic, driving a shift from Arctic to more boreal ecosystem characteristics. This phenomenon, known as borealization, is mainly described for certain functional groups along sub-Arctic inflow shelves (Barents and Chukchi Seas). In this review, we evaluate the spatial extent of such altera...
Located at the confluence of the Arctic and North Pacific and with Alaska at its heart, the Pacific Arctic Region (PAR) is a unique and interconnected regional climate system. Significant climatic changes in the PAR are described by a novel, mobile monthly Alaska Arctic Front (AAF) index, which is defined by sea level pressure differences between t...
Male sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are known to interact with and depredate from commercial longline fishing vessels targeting sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This study aims to better understand their movement patterns and diving behavior in this region, and in relation to depredation behavior. Between 2007 and...
The frequency of dissolved oxygen depletion events (hypoxia) in coastal aquatic ecosystems has risen dramatically since the late 20th century, yet the causes and consequences of hypoxia for some culturally and economically important species remain poorly understood. In rivers, oxygen depletion can be caused by high densities of spawning Pacific sal...
Alaskan marine ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented change and species are facing increasingly variable and potentially inhospitable habitats. As top predators, marine mammals serve an important role as sentinels of ecosystem health. With their high site fidelity, abundant numbers, coastal presence and role as a top predator, humpback whales (Me...
The Arctic region is experiencing drastic climatic changes bringing about potential ecological shifts. Here, we explored marine biodiversity and potential species associations across eight Arctic marine areas between 2000 and 2019. We compiled species occurrences for a subset of 69 marine taxa (i.e., 26 apex predators and 43 mesopredators) and envi...
Arctic cod is an important prey species in Arctic marine ecosystems that provides efficient energy transfer from producers to consumers in the food web. Arctic cod are locally abundant throughout the Arctic, though little is known about their early life stages in the Pacific Arctic, especially when and where they spawn and hatch. This study estimat...
The temperature–size rule predicts that climate warming will lead to faster growth rates for juvenile fishes but lower adult body size. Testing this prediction is central to understanding the effects of climate change on population dynamics. We use fisheries-independent data (1999–2019) to test predictions of age-specific climate effects on body si...
Nearshore fish communities comprise a fundamental component of Arctic marine ecosystems and serve as an important subsistence resource. As changing climate conditions affect Arctic waters, nearshore fish communities may also shift; however, how these communities will respond to climate change is not well understood. This study summarizes trends fro...
Warming oceans, the loss of sea ice, and changes in advection drive changes in highly productive Subarctic marine ecosystems and the borealization of Arctic marine ecosystems. Borealization refers to the northward shift or expansion of marine organisms, including commercially important fish stocks, into Arctic waters. These shifts in distribution h...
Coastal ecosystems in Alaska are undergoing rapid change due to warming and glacier recession. We used a natural gradient of glacierized to non-glacierized watersheds (0–60% glacier coverage) in two regions along the Gulf of Alaska—Kachemak Bay and Lynn Canal—to evaluate relationships between local environmental conditions and estuarine fish commun...
Community assembly theory states that species assemble non-randomly as a result of dispersal limitation, biotic interactions, and environmental filtering. Strong environmental filtering likely leads to local assemblages that are similar in their functional trait composition (high trait convergence) while functional trait composition will be less si...
Polar cod and saffron cod are dominant components of the fish community in the Chukchi Sea and are ecologically important forage fishes linking plankton to upper-level consumers. In 2017, we conducted a study as part of the Arctic Integrated Ecosystem Research Program to characterize the distribution, abundance, and growth of polar cod and saffron...
Climate change impacts are pronounced at high latitudes, where warming, reduced sea-ice-cover, and ocean acidification affect marine ecosystems. We review climate change impacts on two major gateways into the Arctic: the Bering and Chukchi seas in the Pacific and the Barents Sea and Fram Strait in the Atlantic. We present scenarios of how changes i...
We review recent trends and projected future physical and chemical changes under climate change in transition zones between Arctic and Subarctic regions with a focus on the two major inflow gateways to the Arctic, one in the Pacific (i.e. Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and the Chukchi Sea) and the other in the Atlantic (i.e. Fram Strait and the Barents...
Prey communities in the North Pacific Ocean have been disrupted by marine heatwaves, and reductions in forage fishes have had notable impacts on upper‐trophic‐level consumers. Little is known about the potential effects of a changing prey base for some commercially valuable fishes, such as Sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria. The objectives of this study...
Most of our knowledge on reproductive biology of gray whales dates back to scientific research conducted during commercial whaling in the late 1950s and 1960s. The goal of the present study was to provide updated insights on reproductive physiology of gray whales, using progesterone and testosterone as biomarkers. We measured hormone concentrations...
Successful management and mitigation of marine challenges depends on cooperation and knowledge sharing which often occurs across culturally diverse geographic regions. Global ocean science collaboration is therefore essential for developing global solutions. Building effective global research networks that can enable collaboration also need to ensu...
The goal of the present study was to complement existing data of testosterone and progesterone in blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) blubber from the eastern North Pacific Ocean to evaluate effects of seasonality and location on these hormones, and to better assess reproductive status of individuals. Physiological parameters regarding reproduction...
The Arctic Marine Biodiversity Observing Network monitors biological assemblages on taxonomic scales ranging from microbes to seabirds on the northeast Chukchi Sea shelf to improve understanding of their responses to changing environmental conditions, including climate change. Here, we compare two years, 2015 and 2017, the latter characterized by a...
Anthropogenic CO 2 emissions associated with fossil fuel combustion have caused declines in baseline oceanic δ ¹³ C values. This phenomenon, called the Suess effect, can confound comparisons of marine δ ¹³ C data from different years. The Suess effect can be corrected for mathematically; however, a variety of disparate techniques are currently used...
Southeast Alaska sea otters (Enhydra lutris) have had a rapid rise in their population. As they feed primarily on sessile prey, they are excellent sentinels for examining metals contamination. Objectives of this study on sea otters were to determine: (1) concentrations of metals in different tissues; (2) whether metals biomagnify from stomach conte...
The subarctic shelf of the Eastern Bering Sea (EBS) is one of the world's most productive marine environments, exposed to drastic climate changes characterized by extreme fluctuations in temperature, sea ice concentration, timing, and duration. These climatic changes elicit profound responses in species distribution, abundance, and community compos...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are the most abundant and ecologically important forage fishes in the Pacific Arctic marine ecosystem, yet little is known about their spawning locations or the habitats occupied by their early life stages (ELS). We developed a biophysical transport model coupled to a Pan-Arctic hydro...
Understanding how energy allocation changes with ontogeny can provide insights about survival bottlenecks during early life stages for marine fishes. Energy allocation in juvenile fish before and during their critical first winter differs among species based on life history and foraging characteristics. To improve understanding of energy-size relat...
Summer surveys of the Chukchi Sea indicate that high densities of age‐0 gadid fishes, historically Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) but recently also walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), dominate the pelagic fish community. Adults are comparatively scarce, suggesting that either overwinter survivorship of age‐0 gadids is low, or that they emigrate t...
Climate change is triggering a global reorganization of marine life. Biogeographical transition zones, diversity-rich regions straddling biogeographical units where many species live at, or close to, their physiological tolerance limits (i.e., range distribution edges), are redistribution hotspots that offer a unique opportunity to understand the m...
Alaskan Arctic shelf communities are currently experiencing dramatic changes that will likely affect ecosystem functioning of Arctic marine benthic communities. Here, functional diversity based on biological traits was used to assess differences and similarities in ecosystem functioning between 2 shelf systems that are geographically close but vary...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) is the most abundant fish in the US Arctic (US Chukchi and Beaufort seas), where commercial fishing is currently prohibited because data to assess the sustainability of potential fisheries are lacking. Using data from fisheries oceanographic surveys in the US Chukchi Sea during 2012 and 2013 (August–September), we exami...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) is the most abundant and ubiquitous fish species throughout the Arctic Ocean. As such, they serve an important ecosystem role linking upper and lower trophic levels and transferring energy between the benthic and pelagic realms. Our objective is to explore what limits the southern distribution of polar cod in Pacific an...
Annual ice retreat in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas, which has occurred earlier in the past decades resulting in longer ice-free seasons and warmer ocean temperatures, is producing a cascade of ecological effects, and may open Arctic waters to commercial fishing and oil exploration. Baseline knowledge of population structure of a species is...
Climate change in Arctic and sub-Arctic seas is leading to rapid changes in the dispersal potential of marine organisms. In Alaskan waters, loss of sea ice and salinity changes associated with warming may have a strong effect on the distribution and survival of eggs and larvae of key fish species at the Pacific–Arctic interface, such as polar cod (...
Environmental conditions influence the presence, species composition, abundance, and growth of fish species in the nearshore Arctic ecosystem. With ongoing shifts in Arctic conditions due to climate change, how fish communities and individual species respond to such changes to environmental variability more broadly is unknown. This study analyzed c...
Predation can have substantial and long‐term effects on the population dynamics of ecologically important prey. Diverse predator assemblages, however, may produce stabilizing (i.e., portfolio) effects on prey mortality when consumption varies asynchronously among predators. We calculated spatiotemporal variation in predation on a dominant forage sp...
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are highly social and occasionally gather in large aggregations that reach 150 individuals. During 338 encounters with Southern Alaska resident killer whales, we collected 1,352 hr of behavioral data to assess the probability of various behaviors based on season, number of pods present, presence of rarely sighted pods,...
Background
Archival tags that measure the Earth’s magnetic field could provide a new geolocation method for demersal fishes in the North Pacific Ocean. However, the presence of local magnetic field anomalies caused by geological formations such as volcanic rock and temporal fluctuations from solar storms could complicate its use in some high-latitu...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) is a key forage fish in the Arctic marine ecosystem and provides an energetic link between lower and upper trophic levels. Despite its ecological importance, spatially explicit studies synthesizing polar cod distributions across research efforts have not previously been conducted in its Pacific range. We used spatial ge...
Sperm whales interact with commercially important groundfish fisheries offshore in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). This study aims to use stable isotope analysis to better understand the trophic variability of sperm whales and their potential prey, and to use dietary mixing models to estimate the importance of prey species to sperm whale diets. We analys...
The whale-watching industry in Juneau, Alaska relies primarily on the presence of North Pacific humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). To meet demands from the rapidly growing tourism industry, the number of whale-watching vessels in this region has tripled over the last 18 years. As a result, increased vessel presence could have negative effect...
Walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) supports one of the largest commercial fisheries in the world. Juvenile pollock are important forage fish in the eastern Bering Sea (EBS) ecosystem, often representing the largest fraction in the diets of major Bering Sea piscivores. Large variability in the EBS pollock stock biomass in recent years has been at...
State-space geolocation models can provide valuable information on the large-scale movements of many fish species. The sensitivity of such complex models to model assumptions and fixed parameters is rarely assessed quantitatively, yet is important for interpretation of results and adaptation for new species and different geographic regions. We hypo...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are key fishes in the Arctic marine ecosystem, serving as
important trophic links between plankton and apex predators, yet our understanding of their life histories in Alaska’s Arctic
is extremely limited. To improve our knowledge about their early life stages (ELS), we described the...
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are key fishes in the Arctic marine ecosystem, serving as
important trophic links between plankton and apex predators, yet our understanding of their life histories in Alaska’s Arctic
is extremely limited. To improve our knowledge about their early life stages (ELS), we described the...
Abstract
Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are key fishes in the Arctic marine ecosystem, serving as
important trophic links between plankton and apex predators, yet our understanding of their life histories in Alaska’s Arctic
is extremely limited. To improve our knowledge about their early life stages (ELS), we descr...
An international Open Science Meeting entitled Moving in, out, and across the Subarctic and Arctic marine ecosystems: shifting boundaries of water, ice, flora, fauna, people, and institutions, took place 11–15 June 2017 in Tromsø, Norway. Organized by the Ecosystem Studies of Subarctic and Arctic Seas programme and cosponsored by the International...
A global expansion of satellite-based monitoring is making fisher behavioral responses to management actions increasingly observable. However, such data have been underutilized in evaluating the impacts of fishing on target and non-target fish stocks or the ramifications of management strategies on fishers. We demonstrate how vessel monitoring syst...
In light of ongoing, and accelerating, environmental changes in the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean, the ability to track subsequent changes over time in various marine ecosystem components has become a major research goal. The high logistical efforts and costs associated with arctic work demand the prudent use of existing resources for the most...
Aim: To investigate the species-specific exposure and distributional responses of marine fish and invertebrate taxa to rapidly shifting climate in the Pacific Arctic, characterized by warming and cooling episodes, over the last 24 years.
Location: Pacific Arctic region, eastern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea.
Methods: We examined the variations in th...
Rationale
Stable isotope analysis integrates diet information over a time period specific to the type of tissue sampled. For metabolically active skin of free‐ranging cetaceans, cells are generated at the basal layer of the skin and migrate outward until they eventually slough off, suggesting potential for a dietary time series.
Methods
Skin sampl...
Modeled probability of occurrence of larval snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio), Lithodids (Paralithodes platypus, P. camtschaticus, Hapalogaster grebnitzkii), and Hermit Crabs (Labidochirus splendescens, Pagurus trigonochirus) in the Chukchi and northern Bering Sea in Fall 2012
Nine microsatellite loci isolated in saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) have potential applications for population genetics. Polymerase chain reaction products of samples of E. gracilis from northwestern Alaska amplified reliably, produced only one or two microsatellite bands, and had no apparent homozygote excess. A collection of E. gracilis sampled...
Headwater streams contribute to overall production and life history diversity in river systems. These relatively small streams represent an alternative rearing habitat for juvenile fish, including Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch. To determine the extent that juvenile Coho Salmon use headwater habitats, we used a spatially continuous sampling appro...
The warming global climate is reducing sea-ice coverage in the central Arctic, transforming a mostly inaccessible marine region into a 'new' and relatively poorly studied ocean. History shows that exploitation of newly accessible natural resources tends to precede effective research and management measures. But in response to increasing access to t...
Understanding how environmental conditions influence productivity of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) requires identifying relationships between ocean-driven processes and early marine growth and survival. We studied size, condition, and abundance of juvenile chum salmon (O. keta) captured in July in Icy Strait, Alaska over 17 years (1997-2013)....
Abundances of small pelagic fish can change dramatically over time and are difficult to forecast, partially due to variable numbers of fish that annually mature and recruit to the spawning population. Recruitment strength of age-3 Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii) in Prince William Sound, Alaska, is estimated in an age-structured model framework as...
Diel vertical migration is commonly associated with pelagic fish species, but demersal fishes may also undertake vertical movements while managing foraging tradeoffs during their vulnerable juvenile stage. We examined fine-scale vertical movements of age-0 juvenile Sablefish Anoplopoma fimbria to better understand behavioral patterns that may affec...