The core function of the Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering (RACE) Groundfish Assessment Program (GAP) is to conduct quantitative fishery surveys and related ecological and oceanographic research to measure and describe the distribution and abundance of commercially important fish and crab stocks in the eastern Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska. As part of the quality control and general documentation of these efforts, digital photographs are taken during each of the surveys. These photos are stored on an AFSC server as .jpg files.

The "add on" project area surveyed depths between the 27 and 175 meter depths around St. George Island and St Paul Island in the Central Bering Sea. Full bottom coverage, consisting of 100% multibeam data was achieved within the limits of hydrography for this survey. One hundred percent backscatter data was acquired and stored by TerraSond, Ltd to be processed by the client. The data were collected from the R/V Mount Mitchell by Terrasond, Inc using a Simrad EM710 multibeam echosounder.

The "add on" project area surveyed depths between the 27 and 175 meter depths around St. George Island and St Paul Island in the Central Bering Sea. Full bottom coverage, consisting of 100% multibeam data was achieved within the limits of hydrography for this survey. One hundred percent backscatter data was acquired and stored by TerraSond, Ltd to be processed by the client. The data were collected from the R/V Mount Mitchell by Terrasond, Inc using a Simrad EM710 multibeam echosounder.

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.

The data supporting the "Model Results of Aleutian Island POP distributions" manuscript are distribution and abundance of Pacific ocean perch from RACEBase, distribution of biogenic structures from RACEBase, coincident observations of environmental covariates, and some modeled habitat covariates used to assess relationships between POP distribution and abundance and their habitat. Time frame is 1997-2010 and geographic area is Aleutian Islands.

A total of 105 stations were occupied. There were two sample grids (southeast Alaska and Yakutat Bay) and two transects in the vicinity of Kayak Island. At each station we sampled using paired 20 and 60 cm Bongo frames (150 and 500 micron mesh nets, respectively) and a Sameoto neuston sampler (500 micron mesh net) to estimate the abundance of zoo- and ichthyoplankton. A SeaBird SeaCat (SBE 19 plus) was used with the bongo frames to determine the depth of the samplers in real time and to measure temperature and conductivity. At a few selected stations depth-stratified plankton were obtained with a 1 meter squared MOCNESS (500 micron mesh nets) and at other selected stations microzooplankton were sampled with vertical tows of a CalVET net (53 micron mesh).

A total of 105 stations were occupied. There were two sample grids (southeast Alaska and Yakutat Bay) and two transects in the vicinity of Kayak Island. At each station we sampled using paired 20 and 60 cm Bongo frames (150 and 500 micron mesh nets, respectively) and a Sameoto neuston sampler (500 micron mesh net) to estimate the abundance of zoo- and ichthyoplankton. A SeaBird SeaCat (SBE 19 plus) was used with the bongo frames to determine the depth of the samplers in real time and to measure temperature and conductivity. At a few selected stations depth-stratified plankton were obtained with a 1 meter squared MOCNESS (500 micron mesh nets) and at other selected stations microzooplankton were sampled with vertical tows of a CalVET net (53 micron mesh).

A comprehensive species list of marine invertebrates of Alaska has been lacking. The checklist of Austin (1985) treated the marine invertebrates of the southern coast of Alaska to California and since then many new species have been described, many range extensions have been discovered, and considerable changes in higher-level systematics have been made. The checklist we compiled lists over 3,500 species and includes the currently accepted scientific name and its significant synonyms, common names, type localities, geographic and depth distributions, a general statement of abundance in Alaska when known (e.g., rare, uncommon, common, abundant), and general remarks. This checklist will serve as a foundation for future species-specific research. Updated species lists are necessary to reflect the current state of biodiversity knowledge and are thus essential for conservation planning and management. To monitor and predict future changes to marine life, the distribution and abundance of marine species need to be better understood, and this can only be achieved with reliable identifications based on a sound taxonomy. The current status and future directions of Alaskan marine invertebrate biodiversity are briefly discussed.

The core function of the Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering (RACE) Division is to conduct quantitative fishery surveys and related ecological and oceanographic research to measure and describe the distribution and abundance of commercially important fish and crab stocks in the eastern Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska, and, historically, the U.S. West Coast. As part of these efforts, oceanographic data is collected using an instrument attached to the bottom trawl headrope. The data includes: pH, turbidity, depth, temperature, salinity and O2. These data are stored on an AFSC server as .txt files.

We assembled 1.4 million National Ocean Service (NOS) bathymetric soundings from 98 lead-line and single-beam echosounder hydrographic surveys conducted from 1910 to 1999 in Cook Inlet, Alaska. These bathymetry data are available from the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov), which archives and distributes data that were originally collected by the NOS and others. While various bathymetry data have been downloaded previously from NGDC, compiled, and used for a variety of projects, our effort differed in that we compared and corrected the digital bathymetry by studying the original analog source documents - digital versions of the original survey maps, called smooth sheets. Our editing included deleting erroneous and superseded values, digitizing missing values, and properly aligning all data sets to a common, modern datum. There were six areas where these older surveys were superseded by compilations of reduced-resolution multibeam surveys. We digitized 12,000 features, such as rocky reefs, kelp beds, rocks and islets, adding them to what was originally available, and creating the most thorough source (n = 18,000) of these typically shallow, inshore features. We also digitized 2,418 km of the mainland and 529 km of island shoreline, generally at a resolution of 1:20,000, and digitized 9,271 verbal surficial sediment descriptions from the smooth sheets. The depth surface, shoreline, inshore features, and sediment data sets are mostly produced at a scale of 1:20,000.