Call for Papers
New Methodology for Tracking Fish, Mammal and Seabird Behavior and Migrations
International Conference for the Exploration of the Sea
22-26 September 2008
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Abstract Deadline: Monday, 21 April 2008
For more information, please go to:
http://www.ices.dk/iceswork/asc/2008/index.asp
Papers are invited for "New Methodology for tracking fish, mammal and
seabird behavior and migrations," a session being convened at the 2008
International Conference for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) on 22-26
September 2008, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Session description:
To be more consistent with the ecosystem approach to management, fishery
stock assessment models are increasingly becoming spatially explicit in
terms of growth, reproduction, and fishing mortality. An important
element of such modeling efforts is the correct specification of the
biomass flow between spatial compartments due to the seasonal migration
of fish, marine mammals, and birds. Migration rates have traditionally
been estimated using mark and recapture studies, but the accuracy of
such information was largely dependent upon the spatial distribution of
the tag recovery effort. Recently, however, a variety of electronic
tagging methods have allowed the determination of detailed migration
routes of individual animals in ways that are independent of the tag
recovery pattern. Among the recent innovations to obtain geographic
positions are acoustic tags and PIT tags using large-scale receiver
arrays, pressure-based archival tags using tidal drift or tidal matching
models, and light-based archival tags. New methods for linking
geo-positions into migration trajectories that better incorporate
positioning errors include Kalman filters, particle filters, and
calibrated smoothing algorithms. Collectively these methods are
providing individual-based migration information that will not only
allow better parameterization of fishery management models but also
provide the data needed to better understand the influence of
environmental factors on the timing and extent of marine animal
migration.
Conveners:
David Somerton, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, USA
E-mail: david.somerton [at] noaa.gov
Francis Neat, FRS, Scotland, UK
E-mail: F.Neat [at] MARLAB.AC.UK
Erling S. Nordoy, University of Tromso, Norway
E-mail: erlingn [at] fagmed.uit.no
Kevin Weng, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Hawai'i, USA
E-mail: kevin.weng [at] hawaii.edu
Complete session descriptions and instructions for submitting an
abstract are available at:
http://www.ices.dk/iceswork/asc/2008/index.asp