Washington coast sablefish - Reproductive Life History Analysis of Sablefish Populations off the Washington and California Coasts

Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) have a wide distribution along the Pacific coast, extending from Baja California to Alaska, the Bering Sea and through to the eastern coast of Japan. A unique feature of these fish is the wide variation in temperature and depth that sablefish experience throughout their life cycle, extending from depths 200m as adults to the surface as larvae and juveniles. While the landed weight of sablefish in the commercial fishery is relatively small, the exceptionally high value of this species ranks it 3rd in economic value to walleye pollock and Pacific cod. As such, sablefish are highly managed throughout the Pacific, and understanding the biology of this species is essential for proper management. The aim of this project is to characterize the reproductive life history of two populations of sablefish in coastal Washington and California.

Fish will be collected from the same geographical location on a monthly basis for one year. The reproductive status will be determined from gonadal histology and plasma sex steroid levels, and age will be determined from otoliths. It is expected that data on size, age, rate of gonadal development, seasonal timing of spawning, fecundity, frequency of reproduction, and potential shifts in distribution of sexes will be obtained. This study applies directly to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act, because the data will be used to improve stock assessments and estimates of spawning biomass in this commercially important species. This project is a cooperation with the commercial fishing industry and scientists at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) and Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC).

Size, sex, gonad stage, fecundity.

Addresses Legal Mandate

Raw/field data

Loaded by batch 4449, 02-20-2013 18:24

Subject to Public Access to Research Results (PARR): Yes

At this time, contact the Data Manager for information on obtaining access to this data set. In the near future, the NWFSC will strive to provide all data resources as a web service in order to meet the NOAA Data Access Policy Directive (https://nosc.noaa.gov/EDMC/PD.DA.php).

NA

Access Database

Medium

These data were collected and processed in accordance with established protocols and best practices under the direction of the project’s Principal Investigator. Contact the dataset Data Manager in section 3 for full QA/QC methodology.

No Delay

The Northwest Fisheries Science Center facilitates backup and recovery of all data and IT components which are managed by IT Operations through the capture of static (point-in-time) backup data to physical media. Once data is captured to physical media (every 1-3 days), a duplicate is made and routinely (weekly) transported to an offsite archive facility where it is maintained throughout the data's applicable life-cycle.

These data were collected and processed in accordance with established protocols and best practices under the direction of the project’s Principal Investigator. Contact the dataset Data Manager in section 3 for full QA/QC methodology.