Alaska Marine Science Symposium

Alaska’s premier marine research conference, the Alaska Marine Science Symposium, will be held Jan 27-31 in Anchorage, Alaska, at the Hotel Captain Cook. Several hundred scientists, educators and other participants will gather to hear reports on marine research.

Keynote speakers, whose names are to be announced later, will be featured on the opening day of the symposium. The second day will focus on the Gulf of Alaska, the third day on the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and the last day on the Arctic. Presentations for each day include research topics on ocean physics, fishes and invertebrates, seabirds, marine mammals and local traditional knowledge.

Presenters on Gulf of Alaska issues will include NOAA Fisheries biologist Steven Barbeaux, who will address heat waves and Pacific cod and University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Emeritus Gordon Kruse who will talk about developing a NOAA Integrated Ecosystem Assessment Program for coastal communities in the Gulf.

For the Bering Sea/Aleutian Island session on Wednesday, Jan. 29, Lisa Eisner of NOAA’s Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau, Alaska, will offer a presentation on oceanographic impacts on walleye Pollock distributions in the northern Bering Sea, and Phyllis Stabeno a physical oceanographer with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash., will discuss the reduction of sea ice in the Bering Sea in 2018 and 2019 and its implications for the future of that ecosystem.

Topics for the Arctic session will range from the role of ocean waves and sea ice in the coastal erosion of the Arctic to evidence for massive and expanding harmful algal blooms in the Alaskan Arctic and algal toxins in the Arctic food web.

The complete list of presenters is available online at www.alaskamarinescience.org/agenda

The sponsor and key organizer of the annual event is the Anchorage-based North Pacific Research Board. Other supporters include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Pollock Conservation Cooperative and the World Wildlife Fund.

Those interested in attending should register online at alaskamarinescience.org.