North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission

Technical Report 18

Table of Contents

North Pacific Salmon Food Webs

Authors: 
Brian P.V. Hunt, Evgeny A. Pakhomov, Ian Forster, Chrys Neville, and International Team 2019–2020

International Team 2019–2020:
Tristan Blaine, Christoph Deeg, Svetlana Esenkulova, Gerard Foley, Tessa J. Frost, Sabrina Garcia, Igor V. Grigorov, Arkadii Ivanov, Hae Kun Jung, Gennady Kantakov, Anton Khleborodov, Rebecca V. LaForge, Jacob E. Lerner, Chrys Neville, Vladimir Radchenko, Igor Shurpa, Alexander Slabinsky, Wesley W. Strasburger, Shigehiko Urawa, Anna Vazhova, Perumthuruthil Vishnu, Charles Waters, Laurie Weitkamp, and Mikhail Zuev

Abstract Excerpt:
This abstract introduces and presents preliminary results from the Canadian led International Year of the Salmon (IYS) food webs project that is researching the high seas feeding ecology of Pacific salmon and the structure of the food webs that support them. Feeding ecology is a critical factor in salmon growth and survival on the high seas, and the winter is expected to be a particularly stressful period since this is when ocean productivity is at its lowest (Beamish and Mahnken 2001). Although the high seas feeding ecology of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) has been sporadically researched since the 1950’s, little if any data have been collected on whole food web dynamics. Since 2013 we have entered into unchartered waters in the North Pacific, with intense heat wave activity potentially leading to wholesale shifts in the structure of the food webs that support salmon (Peterson et al. 2017; von Biela et al. 2019; Litzow et al. 2020). The IYS sample sets from the 2019, 2020, and 2022 expeditions provide the opportunity to advance understanding of food web structure and salmon feeding ecology in the North Pacific, and to relate these to salmon health.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr18/112.114.

Citation

Hunt, B.P.V., E.A. Pakhomov, I. Forster, C. Neville, and International Team 2019–2020.  2022.  North Pacific salmon food webs.  N. Pac. Anadr. Fish Comm. Tech. Rep. 18: 112–114.  https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr18/112.114.