Abundance and proportion of ichthyoplankton of the Northeast U.S. Shelf. Ichthyoplankton data from several surveys conducted during the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction (MARMAP; 1977-1987) and Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon; 1999-2008) programs. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has conducted several ichthyoplankton collection programs on the NEUS Shelf over the past forty years including the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction program (MARMAP, 1977 - 1987) and Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon, 1999 - present) program (Richardson et al. 2010). Both MARMAP and EcoMon were designed as multi-species plankton surveys, and sampling effort covered the entire NEUS Shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (Figure 1, Sibunka and Silverman 1984, 1989; Richardson et al. 2010).

Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Supplemental Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information

Abundance and proportion of ichthyoplankton of the Northeast U.S. Shelf. Ichthyoplankton data from several surveys conducted during the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction (MARMAP; 1977-1987) and Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon; 1999-2008) programs.

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has conducted several ichthyoplankton collection programs on the NEUS Shelf over the past forty years including the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction program (MARMAP, 1977 - 1987) and Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon, 1999 - present) program (Richardson et al. 2010). Both MARMAP and EcoMon were designed as multi-species plankton surveys, and sampling effort covered the entire NEUS Shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (Figure 1, Sibunka and Silverman 1984, 1989; Richardson et al. 2010).

References:
Richardson DE, Hare JA, Overholtz WJ, Johnson DL. 2010. Development of long-term larval indices for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) on the northeast US continental shelf. Ices Journal of Marine Science. 67(4):617-27. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp276

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1984. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1977-1983). Atlas No. 1. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NMFS-F/NEC-33:306 p.

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1989. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1984-87). Atlas No. 3. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NEFC-F/NEC-68:197 p.

MARMAP used mainly a fixed station design covering the sample area of each survey approximately evenly (Sibunka and Silverman 1984, 1989).  EcoMon sampled the same spatial extent of the shelf as MARMAP, but used a random-stratified design based on the NEFSC bottom trawl survey design (Azarovitz 1981). The number of plankton strata (n = 47) is lower than the bottom trawl survey (n = 108) as the narrow inshore stratum and the offshore shelf-break stratum of the bottom trawl survey (Azarovitz 1981) are combined in the EcoMon plankton sampling design.  The area encompassed by each stratum determined the number of samples in that stratum.  The number of stations sampled during an EcoMon survey is approximately 30 % less than that of MARMAP.  Samples were collected four to eight times per year (primarily: January-February, March-April, May-June, July-August, September-October, and November-December) for each program (Richardson et al. 2010).

The basic station protocols were very similar for MARMAP and EcoMon (Jossi and Marak 1983, Ejsymont and Sherman 2000).  Samples were collected both day and night using a 61-cm bongo.  Net tow speed was approximately 1.5 knots. Double oblique tows were a minimum of 5-mintues in duration, and fished from the surface to within 5-m of the seabed or to a maximum depth of 200-m. The volume filtered of all collections was measured with mechanical flowmeters mounted across the mouth of each net. Mesh size of the net differed between the programs, and was 505-μm during MARMAP and 333-μm during EcoMon.  Samples were preserved in 5% formalin.

Processing of most samples was conducted at the Morski Instytut Rybacki in Szczecin, Poland; the remaining samples were processed at the NEFSC or the Atlantic Reference Center, St Andrews, Canada. Larvae were identified to the lowest possible taxon and enumerated for each sample. Plankton tows differ with respect to volume of water filtered and maximum tow depth. In order to make data values comparable, these values were normalized through the use of a standard haul factor: h = z * 10 / v, where z = maximum tow depth (in meters) and v = volume of water filtered (in meters cubed). Taxon abundance for each station was standardized to number under 10 • m-2 sea surface (Morse 1989).

References:
Azarovitz TR. 1981. A brief historical review of the Woods Hole Laboratory trawl survey time series. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 58:62-7.

Ejsymont L, Sherman K. 2000. Poland and the United States' cooperation in fisheries ecology: a multidecadal retrospective. Bulletin Sea Fisheries Institute Gdynia. 3(3-10).

Jossi JW, Marak RR. 1983. MARMAP plankton survey manual. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NMFS-F/NEC-21:258 p. URL: http://nefsc.noaa.gov/publications/tm/pdfs/tmfnec21.pdf

Morse W. 1989. Catchability, Growth, and Mortality of Larval Fishes. Fish Bul. 87(3):417-46. URL: http://fishbull.noaa.gov/873/morse.pdf

Richardson DE, Hare JA, Overholtz WJ, Johnson DL. Development of long-term larval indices for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) on the northeast US continental shelf. 2010. Ices Journal of Marine Science. 67(4):617-27. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp276

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1984. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1977-1983). Atlas No. 1. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NMFS-F/NEC-33:306 p.

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1989. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1984-87). Atlas No. 3. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NEFC-F/NEC-68:197 p.

Relative proportion (rel_proportion) of larvae was calculated yearly for each of the 47 EcoMon strata for six bi-monthly seasons (1 = January-February, 2 = March-April, 3 = May-June, 4 = July-August, 5 = September-October, and 6 = November-December). The mean number of larvae per stratum (mean_abund) was estimated from all tows made in a stratum in a single bi-monthly season in each year. The absolute number of larvae in the stratum was estimated by multiplying the mean abundance of larvae within a stratum in the bi-monthly season and year by stratum area (m^2). Thus, there were six estimates of larval abundance for each stratum per year, one for each season. If no samples were collected in a stratum for a year and season a 'nd' was placed in the mean_abund and rel_proportion columns.

BCO-DMO Processing:
- Sorted data by taxa, year, season, strata.
- Replaced spaces with underscores in taxa names.
- Modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions.
- Replaced 'NaN' with 'nd'.

Coverage: Northeast U.S. Shelf Ecosystem from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has conducted several ichthyoplankton collection programs on the NEUS Shelf over the past forty years including the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction program (MARMAP, 1977 - 1987) and Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon, 1999 - present) program (Richardson et al. 2010). Both MARMAP and EcoMon were designed as multi-species plankton surveys, and sampling effort covered the entire NEUS Shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (Figure 1, Sibunka and Silverman 1984, 1989; Richardson et al. 2010).

References:
Richardson DE, Hare JA, Overholtz WJ, Johnson DL. 2010. Development of long-term larval indices for Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) on the northeast US continental shelf. Ices Journal of Marine Science. 67(4):617-27

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1984. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1977-1983). Atlas No. 1. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NMFS-F/NEC-33:306 p.

Sibunka JD, Silverman MJ. 1989. MARMAP surveys of the continental shelf from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to Cape Sable, Nova Scotia (1984-87). Atlas No. 3. Summary of operations. US Department of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memo. NEFC-F/NEC-68:197 p.

Website: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/history/nefsc.html

Coverage: U.S. Continental Shelf

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center is the research arm of NOAA Fisheries in the Northeast region. The Center plans, develops, and manages a multidisciplinary program of basic and applied research to: (1) better understand living marine resources of the Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, and the habitat quality essential for their existence and continued productivity; and (2) describe and provide to management, industry, and the public, options for the conservation and utilization of living marine resources, and for the restoration and maintenance of marine environmental quality.

 

The functions are carried out through the coordinated efforts of research facilities located in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Washington, DC.

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