Project Independent Advisory Team for Marine Mammal Assessments Dr. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Project “Independent Advisory Team for Marine Mammal Assessments”

Atlantic Scientific Review Group Annual Meeting 5-7 February 2014 Woods Hole, MA

• Dr. Paula Moreno

Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

What is SCeMFiS?

 A National Science Foundation Industry/University

Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC)  Academic-Industry Partnerships at NSF

“I/UCRCs … a new era of partnership between universities and industry, featuring high-quality, industrially relevant fundamental research, strong industrial support of and collaboration in research and education” http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/

 SCeMFiS: first I/UCRC dedicated to fisheries research

http://www.SCeMFiS.org

 NSF considers an “Industry” Partner to be any:

• Private company
• Publicly-traded company
• Trade organization
• Non-profit group
• Government (federal, state, or local) agency

 Academic Institutions:

 University of Southern Mississippi (Lead)  Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Partner)

What is an Industry Partner?

What is SCeMFiS?

 Center Rationale:

Develop research essential for the sustainable management of shellfish and finfish resources

Data Collection Sampling Design Assessment Modeling

Science Agenda Targets

Fisheries Performance Bycatch Reduction Management Strategy Evaluation

What is SCeMFiS?

 Current Research Portfolio: ~10 projects

• Juvenile survey for Surf clams
• Optimization of survey methodology for Black Sea Bass
• Marine mammal independent advisory team

Assessment Modeling MM-Fisheries interactions

 Members Motivation: Support research leading to reduced

uncertainty associated with some components of SA

 Research Motivation: Examine current technical challenges

in estimating SA parameters and MM-fisheries interactions => Supplementary to SAR/SRG efforts

SCeMFiS Science Components

Supporting SA Needs

 Supplemental resources to address technical aspects  Stock structure: use of proxies (e.g., habitat,

abundance) when insufficient biological information

(Moore and Merrick, 2011)

 Abundance and PBR over broad areas: interpolation to

fill gaps (e.g., survey coverage) (Moore and Merrick, 2011)

 Human-caused mortality/SI: identify fraction of stock

range subject to highest level (Moore and Merrick, 2011)

PBR = Nmin * 0.5 Rmax * Fr Population Trends Examples of SAR Requirements for each stock: Human-caused mortality/SI

 “… the ASRG recommends that NOAA Fisheries

continue to explore alternative approaches to monitoring, particularly for species that are not amenable to traditional visual line transect surveys.”

(Atlantic Scientific Review Group, 1 April 2013)

 “… the Commission recommended that the Service

develop alternative strategies for collecting information

• n mortality and serious-injury levels in fisheries for

which entanglements are difficult to detect or quantify using traditional observer programs.” (MMC Annual Report for 2010-2011)

Supporting SA Needs

New Opportunities: Big Data Era

Vessel Monitoring System Yottabite

Source: Fisheries and Oceans Canada http://www.nfl.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/e0010178

New Approaches and Modeling Advances

Project Goals

 Assemble SA expert team  Strengthen team’s base knowledge of

challenges in SA of marine mammal Atlantic stocks => seeking input from SRG, NMFS, MMC, TRTs, etc.

 Provide research recommendations to

SCeMFiS’s science agenda ✔

Research Team

Paula Moreno (PI), Ph.D. in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences (Texas

A&M Univ.); Research Scientist (Univ. Southern Mississippi)

John Brandon, Ph.D. in Aquatic & Fisheries Sciences (Univ. of

Washington); Marine Stock Assessment Scientist

André Punt, Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Univ. of Cape Town);

Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (Univ. of Washington)

Randall Reeves, Ph.D. in Geography (McGill Univ.); Consultant

Okapi Wildlife Assoc.; Marine Mammal Expert

Project Management and Evaluation

Principal Researcher: Develops proposal; directs project;

reports progress to Center. Point of contact for interested parties (Paula Moreno)

Industry Liaison: Follows project progress and provides

information to ensure project goals are met (Greg DiDomenico)

NSF Evaluator: Independent professional evaluator assigned by

NSF to ensure SCeMFiS performance consistent with high standards set by NSF (Donald Davis)

Big Data, but…

“The data may not contain the answer. The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data...” (Tukey, 1986)

… also the Right Data & Methods

Source: Kellogg Magazine, Northwestern University

This presentation is an account of work sponsored by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS)