Muter and Norcross: Distribution, abundance, and growth of Theragra chalcogramma 



589 



Acknowledgments 



We thank T. Weingartner and T. Royer for 

 the use of unpublished data, B. Holladay and 

 A. J. Paul for review of the manuscript, and 

 A. L. Brown, K. M. Bailey, K. Besser, and L. 

 Haldorson for help with larval otolith age- 

 ing. Two anonymous reviewers provided help- 

 ful suggestions. Funding for this study was 

 provided by Alaska Sea Grant No. NA86AA- 

 D-56041. 



Gulf of Alaska (Table 4). The median hatch date is 

 remarkably consistent among different parts of the 

 Gulf and among different years which would require 

 a common, underlying mechanism to trigger spawn- 

 ing over such a broad geographical range. The val- 

 ues from Shelikof Strait suggest a trend towards later 

 spawning dates between 1983 and 1987. More data 

 are needed to determine if a similar trend exists in 

 other areas of the Gulf and to identify parameters 

 responsible for the timing of spawning. 



Conclusions 



The high abundances and growth rates of larvae in 

 Resurrection Bay indicate that the fjord provides a 

 suitable environment for the successful growth of 

 larval walleye pollock. The hydrography of the re- 

 gion and larval size distributions support the hypoth- 

 esis that larvae recruit to the fjord from outside by 

 advection into the outer basin of Resurrection Bay 

 and across the sill. These observations and the high 

 abundances of pollock larvae in nearby Prince Will- 

 iam Sound during the same year (Norcross and 

 Frandsen 1 ) suggest that a large spawning popula- 

 tion of walleye pollock exists in the region and that 

 not all walleye pollock in the northern Gulf of Alaska 

 spawn in Shelikof Strait. Larval walleye pollock are 

 also abundant in the bays of Southeast Alaska 

 (Haldorson et al., 1989, a and b). Thus, it is likely 

 that many embayments along the Gulf of Alaska are 

 utilized by this species. 



Future work is needed to determine the extent of 

 spawning in the vicinity of Resurrection Bay and 

 Prince William Sound and to test whether the area 

 is consistently used by larval walleye pollock or 

 whether abundances observed in 1989 were unusual. 

 Also, the residence time of larvae in the area is not 

 known. While larval pollock were found in Resurrec- 

 tion Bay in all three years for which data are avail- 

 able, there has been only one report of juvenile wall- 

 eye pollock in the fjord (Feder et al., 1979). 



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