FOCI PI Meeting Minutes - February 2001

MF-01-01, Leg 1: Ann Matarese reported on work done during 1MF01 led by Morgan Busby. The objective of the cruise was to find spawning arrowtooth flounder (ATF) or collect their eggs from the water column. Despite 16 years at sea, FOCI has never collected any eggs from ATF, probably because the proper locations and times were not sampled. This cruise sampled along the shelf break from Kodiak Island to Dutch Harbor during the end of January and beginning of February. Bottom trawls and 60-cm bongos were conducted to 200, 400, and 600-m depths. Specimens taken from the bottom trawl were used to fertilize several batches of eggs. One batch was fertilized successfully. The eggs are currently being reared in building 32. ATF eggs are smaller than had been hypothesized. It is hoped to repeat the sampling next year, but perhaps a few weeks later. All mooring work on the cruise in support of crab ecology studies was also successful.

MF-01-01, Leg 2: Carol DeWitt and FOCI personnel on the cruise currently taking place aboard the Miller Freeman have recovered moorings at Bering Sea sites 2 and 3 and redeployed moorings at site 2. Mooring 2 deployed in 1999 was found recently by a fisherman about 40 miles to the south of its original location. He recovered the top 2 instruments and returned them. Leg 2 personnel later recovered the bottom of the mooring. The middle instruments, a current meter and mini-temperature recorder, are lost. Cruise personnel are currently experiencing rough weather and will be able to complete only the shallow section of the “L” transect.

2002 ship time aboard Ron Brown: PMEL next week will present a proposal to the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) requesting 30 and 25 sea days in the spring and fall of 2002 for FOCI research. As it stands now, interested programs have requested twice as many sea days as are available during FY 2002 aboard Ron Brown. There was some discussion about the availability and practicality (both physically and financially) of alternate ships, including U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard vessels, and the NSF ships Wecoma and Alpha Helix. All have drawbacks, especially for mooring work, although the Wecoma could be used for biological sampling. Loss of sea time aboard the Ron Brown in 2002 would be a serious setback for FOCI.

	U.S. Department of Commerce / NOAA	/ ^{OAR / PMEL / OERD}\ ^{\ NMFS / AFSC / RACE/}	FOCI
	Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations

Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations