518 
Fishery Bulletin 95(3), 1997 
between the east and west sides of Kodiak Island 
and among different bays. These differences possi- 
bly reflect oceanographic conditions that lead to vari- 
able levels of recruitment into different nearshore 
areas around Kodiak Island. Habitat models incor- 
porating geographical and oceanographic infor- 
mation may help to reveal these mechanisms but 
would require larger sample sizes than are presently 
available. 
The abundance of prey (McIntyre and Eleftheriou, 
1968; Minami, 1986; Allen, 1988) and predators (van 
der Veer et al., 1991; Seikai et al., 1993) may influ- 
ence the distribution and abundance of flatfish spe- 
cies but cannot be quantified without extensive sur- 
veys. Incorporating prey or predator abundance into 
a general habitat model is therefore probably of little 
practical use in applying the model to other areas. 
Postmetamorphic flatfishes in southeastern Alaska 
(Sturdevant, 1987) and juvenile flatfishes near 
Kodiak (Holladay and Norcross, 1995) feed prima- 
rily on small meiofaunal, benthic, and epibenthic 
crustaceans, including mysids, amphipods, cuma- 
ceans, and copepods. The diets of flathead sole, Pa- 
cific halibut, yellowfin sole, and rock sole were dif- 
ferent in different capture sites, when region, depth, 
and substrate were the parameters used for the sites. 
This finding suggests that these species are oppor- 
tunistic and feed on the prey available in their lo- 
cale, rather than that they are discriminating, de- 
termining locale on the basis of prey availability. 
Additional information is desirable to describe the 
microhabitat at each station more precisely. During 
our sampling, we obtained qualitative descriptions 
of the benthic flora and fauna that were collected at 
each station and a very broad quantification of the 
dominant invertebrates that were caught together 
with the fishes. In the future, we will attempt to con- 
solidate this information into a categorical “commu- 
nity descriptor” for each station. This “community 
descriptor” can then be used as an additional ex- 
planatory variable in future models. 
Acknowledgments 
We wish to thank all those who helped us collect data: 
Gary Edwards, Jane Eisemann, Bruce Short, Waldo 
Wakefield, Dave Doudna, and Charlene Zabriskie; 
and Michele Frandsen for the graphics. Thanks to 
David Welch and three anonymous reviewers for 
critically reviewing this manuscript. This research 
was funded by Saltonstall-Kennedy funds through 
NOAA grant #NA-16FD0216-01, and the Coastal 
Marine Institute of the University of Alaska through 
grant #14-35-0001-30661. 
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