Thursday April 18, 2024
EurekAlert! —
A massive new analysis of high seas salmon surveys is enhancing the understanding of salmon ecology, adding details about where various species congregate in the North Pacific Ocean and their different temperature tolerances.
The project, led by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, integrates numerous international salmon studies from the North Pacific dating back to the 1950s. Although many individual reports were published by nations and agencies that funded those efforts, they were never fully compiled into an overarching database or analyzed comprehensively at this scale. This new research effort builds upon the extensive and valuable past body of work on the marine component of the salmon life cycle.
Together the data represent a trove of more than 44,000 high seas survey gear hauls across the North Pacific, netting over 14 million salmon. That ocean-based data also provides a contrast from the bulk of salmon research, which tends to focus on river habitat.