Matthew R Baker

North Pacific Research Board, Anchorage, United States

Few studies have considered the management implications of mortality to target fish stocks caused by non-retention in commercial harvest gear (escape mortality). We demonstrate the magnitude of this previously unquantified source of mortality and its implications for the population dynamics of exploited stocks, biological metrics, stock productivit...

Sand lance and sand eels (Ammodytes spp.) are a critical component in all northern latitude pelagic ecosystems. They are primary forage species for marine birds and mammals, target stocks for commercial fisheries in Europe and Asia, and prey to nearly all commercial fishes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. Throughout their range, ther...

Bottom trawl surveys provide fishery‐independent data on relative abundance and life history parameters for a wide range of marine taxa. Survey data are used to assess species distribution, biological interactions, and ecosystem structure and to manage marine resources. Not all bottom types or oceanographic conditions accommodate this survey method...

Microplastics are increasingly prevalent in marine systems and are a growing concern as a marine pollutant and contaminant with consequences for high trophic level consumers, including humans. Given evidence that links plastics to degraded ecosystem functioning and organismal health, there is increased interest in understanding the prevalence, fate...

Direct engagement of the fishing industry in the provision and co-creation of knowledge and data for research and management is increasingly prevalent. In both the North Atlantic and North Pacific, enhanced and targeted engagement is evident. More is needed. Science-Industry collaborative approaches to developing questions, collecting data, interpr...

Forage fishes comprise an integral part of marine food webs in the highly productive ecosystems of the North Pacific. However, significant knowledge gaps exist related to the status of forage fish, their life histories, and how populations may react to future climatic shifts. Standardized bottom trawl surveys are critical to the stock assessment of...

Data and insights from fishers are essential sources of information to advance understanding of fishery and ecosystem dynamics. Incorporating fisher and industry knowledge holds prospects for improving marine science and fisheries management. We address cooperative research in the context of collaboration between fishers, scientists, industries, un...

Diel vertical migration (DVM) in marine organisms is an evolved response to maximize foraging opportunities and minimize predation risk. This pattern in vertical distribution is a widely observed phenomenon and common in pelagic forage fish species. Modelling these dynamics has important relevance to understanding marine ecosystem dynamics, predato...

For future sustainable management of fisheries, we anticipate deeper and more diverse information will be needed. Future needs include not only biological data, but also information that can only come from fishers, such as real-time ‘early warning’ indicators of changes at sea, socio-economic data and fishing strategies. The fishing industry, in ou...

Sand lance or sand eels (Ammodytes spp.) are small planktivorous forage fishes that play an integral role in pelagic ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. Arctic sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) is prevalent in the North Pacific in the Sea of Okhotsk, northern Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, and Beaufort Sea. Few studies have focused on this species des...

Detailed attributes on oogenesis, spermatogenesis, ovarian, and testicular maturity phases of the Pacific sand lance Ammodytes personatus are described here for the first time. Histology was subsequently used to define detailed morphological criteria related to five distinct histological and macroscopic maturity phases. This study revealed that Pac...

The Gulf of Alaska Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (GOAIERP) supported multi-disciplinary analyses integrating physical and biological oceanography and modeling to examine how the environment influences survival and recruitment of early life stages of select commercially and ecologically important groundfish species. Recruitment is an importa...

North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) Special Publication

Forage fish and fish associated with particular benthic habitats (e.g., rockfishes, sand eels, sand lances) may be particularly difficult to assess through standard survey methodologies. Stereo-cameras, video, and automated visual data may serve as useful complementary tools to provide insight into the dynamics of these species. Visual methods may...

The Salish Sea is a marginal inland sea of the NE Pacific (NW North America) that includes the Georgia Strait-Gulf Islands Archipelago of British Columbia, Canada and the San Juan Archipelago, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Lower Puget Sound of Washington State, USA. This marginal seafloor has been extensively mapped and according to criteria pres...

The influence of climate on the dynamics of Arctic gadids is of increasing interest, particularly as research and survey effort expands in the Pacific Arctic. Understanding species-specific thermal tolerance may inform models of species distribution and projections of available habitat and also clarify implications of warming for ecological communi...

The integration of multiple tissues in physiological and ecological analyses can enhance methodological approaches, increase applications for data and extend interpretation of results. Previous investigations of the stress response in fish have focused primarily on cortisol levels in a single matrix—blood plasma—which confines interpretations of co...

Arctic marine ecosystems are experiencing substantial changes associated with sea ice loss and surface warming. The most obvious and dramatic changes include earlier ice retreat and a longer ice-free season, particularly on Arctic inflow shelves, including the Barents Sea in the Atlantic Arctic and the northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea in the Pac...

The northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea represent the gateway from the Pacific to the Arctic. This contiguous marine system encompasses one of the largest continental shelves in the world and serves as the sole point of connection between the North Pacific and Arctic Ocean. This region has unique attributes and complex dynamics, driven by the conve...

The highly productive northern Bering and Chukchi marine shelf ecosystem has long been dominated by strong seasonality in sea-ice and water temperatures. Extremely warm conditions from 2017 into 2019—including loss of ice cover across portions of the region in all three winters—were a marked change even from other recent warm years. Biological ind...

The Pacific Sand Lance (Ammodytes personatus) is a major component of the forage base for many species of marine birds, mammals, and fishes. Despite its ecological importance, relatively little is known regarding basic biology or life-history parameters for this species. Information on age and growth is particularly lacking for Pacific Sand Lance i...

The Gulf of Alaska (GOA) marine ecosystem is complex, supporting abundant plant and animal populations, human coastal communities and commercial activities. This is the second special issue intended to showcase research conducted as part of the GOA Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (IERP), a large multidisciplinary ecological study funded by th...

Fishermen and industries engaged in marine resource extraction are invested in understanding the status and trends of marine ecosystems and targeted resources. These industries are also well positioned to contribute to, support and inform marine science. Individuals involved in those industries have direct interest in and knowledge of marine resour...

OceanGate video of submersible dives

This Science Plan provides the scientific foundation and direction for the North Pacific Research Board for the next decade, serving as the primary reference point for the design and implementation of all NPRB funding programs and activities. This iteration of the plan updates and streamlines the original plan, previously developed with guidance fr...

2018 Submersible Surveys to study dynamics of sand and Pacific sand lance

Forage fishes such as Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes personatus) are a crucial link between lower and upper elements in marine food webs, transferring energy from plankton to higher trophic levels. Despite their importance to marine food webs, little is known about Pacific sand lance population structure and feeding ecology. In this study, we examin...

The Puget Sound Marine Waters 2014 Overview provides a technical overview of the chemical, physical and biological conditions and processes that occurred in Washington's Puget Sound and greater Salish Sea. A collaborative effort between researchers and professionals from government agencies, universities, and other groups, this report provides a sn...

The collective view of Puget Sound’s marine water environment and some of its associated biota in 2014 is presented here in the context of factors that drive variation, such as large-scale climate patterns, coastal upwelling, and regional weather. It is important to document and understand regional drivers and patterns so that water quality data ma...

Pacific sand lance are an important forage fish in the San Juans, and can serve as an important indicator species for the overall health of ecosystems. Our research built upon prior sand lance studies at FHL, and highlighted sand lance population dynamics, diets, and habitat preferences.

Accurate and controlled methods to measure physiological stress are crucial to effectively monitor and assess the health of wildlife populations and evaluate resilience to external stressors. Glucocorticoids, particularly cortisol, are frequently used to measure stress in fish. While measurements of cortisol concentrations provide a powerful indica...

Conservation efforts to better understand how wildlife populations respond to environmental change and anthropogenic disturbance has led to a proliferation of research examining physiological indicators of stress response in wildlife. Glucocorticoid stress hormones (GCs), typically cortisol and corticosterone, are among the most frequently measured...

Exploitation of fisheries resources has unintended consequences, not only in the bycatch and discard of non-target organisms, but also in damage to targeted fish that are injured by gear but not landed (non-retention). Delayed mortality due to non-retention represents lost reproductive potential in exploited stocks, while not contributing to harves...

Exploitation of fisheries resources has unintended consequences, not only in the bycatch and discard of non-target organisms, but also in damage to targeted fish that are injured by gear but not landed (non-retention). Delayed mortality due to non-retention represents lost reproductive potential in exploited stocks, while not contributing to harves...

Supplementary Text: reproductive steroid profiles in maturing female salmon. (DOCX)

Spline curves fit to plasma concentrations of E2 versus 17,20β-DHP as a function of advancing ovarian maturation (top graph) or migration stage (bottom graph ) for coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and masu samon (O. masou). Reproductive maturation stage profiles were reconstructed from multiple year studies (year = 2) (Fitzpatrick et al. 1986). Migratio...

The ability to noninvasively detect the presence of species and assess physiological health by DNA and hormone analysis makes scat a valuable tool for ecology and conservation. We assessed factors associated with DNA and hormone degradation in a four-season study that employed detection dogs to collect scats from maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus)...

Recent analyses have characterized the impacts of fishing exploitation and described shifts in marine community structure on the basis of trends in mean ecosystem trophic level. Both data source and spatial scale have important impacts on the results of such analyses. We develop an integrated assessment of the Bering Sea ecosystem, comparing catch...

Fisheries often exert selective pressures through elevated mortality on a nonrandom component of exploited stocks. Selective removal of individuals will alter the composition of a given population, with potential consequences for its size structure, stability and evolution. Gillnets are known to harvest fish according to size. It is not known, howe...

Fisheries often exert selective pressures through elevated mortality on a nonrandom component of exploited stocks. Selective removal of individuals will alter the composition of a given population, with potential consequences for its size structure, stability and evolution. Gillnets are known to harvest fish according to size. It is not known, howe...

Background / Purpose: Biological transport by migratory species is increasingly recognized as important to the long-range dispersal of contaminants and movement of pollutants across ecosystem boundaries. Mercury (Hg) is a persistent bioaccumulating environmental contaminant harmful to human and ecosystem health. Due to their unique life history,...

Biological transport by migratory animals is increasingly recognized as important to the long-range dispersal of toxic contaminants. Mercury (Hg) contamination is a widespread environmental concern with serious health implications for humans and wildlife. Due to their unique life history, anadromous salmon may act as important vectors for this cont...

1. Effective and sustainable natural resource management is enhanced when the consequences of exploitative practices are fully understood and acknowledged. Commercial fisheries devote considerable resources to maximize the harvest of target species and minimize interference with non‐target stocks. Appropriately, bycatch and discard of non‐target st...