AFSC/RACE/SAP: Small Mesh Survey Data

This database contains information about shrimp surveys conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands dating back to 1953. The main tables used for analysis are the shrimp.catch, shrimp.length, shrimp.cruise, and shrimp.haul tables. Join columns provide linkages between the tables.The shrimp.catch table contains catch weights and counts by haul. Not all catch weights have associated counts and in the earlier years of the time series the catch of all species was not recorded so care must be taken that a non-recorded catch is not interpretated as a zero catch. The shrimp.length table contains the length measurements of the shrimp and other taxa taken during the smallmesh survey.The Shrimp.cruise table contains information on each of the individual surveys called cruises included in the smallmesh database from the Bering Sea, Gulf of Alaska, and Aleutian Islands. The definition of a cruise has not been consistent over the years. Generally, a cruise is conducted by a single vessel in a single geographic area. For certain cruises however, multiple vessels participated in hauls ranging from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The records from some cruises contain as few as one haul while several consist of over 500 hauls. The Shrimp.haul table contains the basic information gathered for each haul including location, date and time, and gear information. Some of the hauls in the data set are from surveys not necessarily targeting shrimp, mainly the hauls in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.

This database contains data from a variety of surveys which have gathered data on shrimp and associated taxa. It is one of the longest survey time series in the North Pacific and is valuable not only for its biological information about commercial shrimp populations, but also changes in the species composition of the catch over time as it relates to climate change and regime shifts in the marine ecosystem.

Loaded by FGDC Metadata Uploader, batch 5040, 07-31-2014 11:37

The following FGDC sections are not currently supported in InPort, but were preserved and will be included in the FGDC export:

- Taxonomy (FGDC:taxonomy)

- Entity Attribute Information (FGDC:eainfo)

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There are no legal restrictions on access to the data. They reside in public domain and can be freely distributed. Contact the point of contact for access to the data.

User must read and fully comprehend the metadata prior to use. Applications or inferences derived from the data should be carefully considered for accuracy. Acknowledgement of NOAA/NMFS/AFSC and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as the source from which these data were obtained, in any publications and/or other representations of these data is requested.

Oracle

Numerous Oracle sql scripts. Contact originator for further details.

Many surveys in the 1970s and 1980s were shrimp surveys only. All other taxa were discarded without being worked up, or only identified to the level of fish or roundfish. These surveys are not identified in the database in any way, so data need to be vetted before use for taxa other than shrimp. Comparisons of catches among various cruises in the same year is a good way to identify shrimp-only surveys. There are also issues of variable resolution of taxonomic identifications for non-shrimp taxa through the time series. For instance, in some early cruises capelin were only identified as Osmeridae, so simply summarizing capelin catches across the time series will result in inaccuracies. Sampling protocols appear to have been consistent within individual cruises. ADF&G cruises generally kept the shrimp only approach going longer in the time series than NMFS cruises.

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No delay

IT Security and Contingency Plan for the system establishes procedures and applies to the functions, operations, and resources necessary to recover and restore data as hosted in the Western Regional Support Center in Seattle, Washington, following a disruption.

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