Life Sciences Commons^™

Virginia Seafood Sustainability, Samantha E. Askin, Robert A. Fisher

Reports

Virginia’s commercial fisheries operate sustainability under a suite of management tools based upon information received from marine scientists and fishery managers who regularly conduct biological sampling of fish while tracking commercial landings and other gathering of required information. Analyses of fishing effort and overall stock conditions, as well as formulas designed to calculate threshold limits for maintaining sustainable stocks are regularly performed. Restrictions on seasons, size, days at sea, and gear are imposed as needed to achieve management supporting long-term biological sustainability.

Estimated Consumer Sensory Shell Life Of Fresh Blue Catfish Filets Stored In Ice (Ictalurus Furcatus), Robert A. Fisher

Reports

Blue Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) is the largest species of catfish in North America where it is native to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river drainages. It was introduced in fresh water Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay to enhance recreational fisheries in the 1970’s, from which significant recreational and commercial wild caught catfish fisheries developed. Since introduction, Blue catfish populations have expanded from upriver freshwater habitat to brackish-water sub-estuaries with reports of blue catfish in the Chesapeake Bay proper. Blue catfish are voracious, opportunistic predators feeding on a variety of natural prey items, including native fish and shellfish species, and …

Results For The 2021 Vims Industry Cooperative Surveys Of The Mid-Atlantic, Nantucket Lightship, Closed Area I, And Closed Area Ii Resource Areas, Sally Roman, David Rudders

Reports

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) conducted high resolution sea scallop dredge surveys of the Mid-Atlantic (MAB), the Nantucket Lightship (NLCA), Closed Area I (CAI), and Closed Area II (CAII) during May - July 2021 (Figure 1). These surveys were funded by the Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program (RSA). Exploitable biomass for each survey is shown in Table 1 for each SAMS Area (Scallop Area Management Simulator). SAMS Areas represent management relevant spatial subunits of the resource and explicitly account for differences in recruitment, vital rates, and fishing effort in the forward projection of survey information. This information is …

The Effect Of Density On Growth, Yield, And Reproduction Of The Sea Scallop, Placopecten Magellanicus: Final Report, Sally Roman, David Rudders, Roger L. Mann, Kaitlyn R. Clark

Reports

Results from this project indicate that density in combination with settlement at depth in potentially marginal habitat contribute to reductions in growth, yield, and reproductive effort. In general, Study Area was not a contributing factor to the reductions in the three areas of scallop biological processes we measured. Scallops that settle in dense aggregations at varying depths may respond differentially to environmental conditions, food availability, habitat, and removals. (...)

Results from this study will enhance our knowledge of the scallop population with respect to conditions that diverge from expected biological processes. Results will also allow for better management and assessment …

Annual Report - 2020 Data Collection And Analysis In Support Of Single And Multispecies Stock Assessments In Chesapeake Bay: The Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring And Assessment Program, Christopher F. Bonzek, James Gartland, Debra J. Gauthier, Robert J. Latour

Reports

Historically, fisheries management has been based on the results of single-species stock assessment models that focus on the interplay between exploitation level and sustainability. There currently exists a suite of standard and accepted analytical frameworks (e.g., virtual population analysis (VPA), biomass dynamic production modeling, delay difference models, etc.) for assessing the stocks, projecting future stock size, evaluating recovery schedules and rebuilding strategies for overfished stocks, setting allowable catches, and estimating fishing mortality or exploitation rates. A variety of methods also exist to integrate the biological system and the fisheries resource system, thereby enabling the evaluation of alternative management strategies on …

Fisheries Landings For The Eastern Shore Of Virginia (Esva) 2021, Richard A. Snyder

Reports

Virginia (VA) landings data were requested from VMRC (Table 1) and analyzed by Richard Snyder at VIMS ESL. Landings data reflect where seafood entered market systems, and so may have different origins that will blur categorizing economic activity ascribed to the act of harvest and the act of processing for market. For example, almost all menhaden are landed in Deltaville, VA, some of the conch/welks and dogfish recorded for Accomack may have originated elsewhere to be processed in Wachapreague, and visiting Maryland crabbers early in the season contribute to blue crab landings. Shellfish data (oysters and clams) are separated as …

The Status Of Virginia’S Public Oyster Resource 2020, Melissa Southworth, Roger L. Mann

Reports

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) monitors recruitment of the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin, 1791), annually from late spring through early fall, by deploying spatfall[1] (settlement and recruitment of larval oysters to the post metamorphic form termed spat) collectors (shellstrings) at various sites in three Virginia western Chesapeake Bay tributaries. The survey provides an estimate of a particular area’s potential for receiving a "strike" or settlement (set) of oysters on the bottom and helps describe the timing of recruitment events in a given year. Information obtained from this monitoring effort provides an overview of long-term recruitment …

Monitoring The Abundance Of American Shad And River Herring In Virginia’S Rivers 2020 Annual Report, Eric J. Hilton, Patrick E. Mcgrath, Brian Watkins, Ashleigh Magee

Reports

This report describes the results of the twenty-third year of a continuing study to estimate the relative abundance and assess the status of American shad (Alosa sapidissima) stocks in Virginia by monitoring the spawning runs in the James, York and Rappahannock rivers in spring 2020, evaluating hatchery programs, and contributing to coast-wide assessments (ASMFC 2007, ASMFC 2020).

We also report on two fisheryindependent monitoring programs using anchor gillnets in the Rappahannock River (year 3) and the Chickahominy River (year 6; a major tributary of the James River), to determine relative abundance and stock structure for the adult spawning run of …

Estimation Of Juvenile Striped Bass Relative Abundance In The Virginia Portion Of Chesapeake Bay Annual Progress Report: 2020-2021, Jack R. Buchanan, Mary C. Fabrizio, Troy D. Tuckey

Reports

No abstract provided.

Vims Shark Longline Annual Report - 2021, Multispecies Research Group, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

Report indicates the number of species caught, retained, released and tagged in the longline surveys.

Virginia Fishery Resource Grant Program 2020, Virginia Fishery Resource Grant Program, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Recruitment Of American Eel, Anguilla Rostrata, In The Potomac River (Spring 2021), Troy D. Tuckey, Mary C. Fabrizio

Reports

American Eel (Anguilla rostrata) is a valuable commercial species along the Atlantic coast of North America from New Brunswick to Florida. Landings from Chesapeake Bay typically represent 60% of the annual United States commercial harvest (ASMFC 2012). American Eel is also important to the recreational fishery as it is often used live as bait for Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) and Cobia (Rachycentron canadum). In 2020, Chesapeake Bay commercial landings of American Eel (218,005 lbs) were 80% of the U.S. landings (personal communication from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fisheries Statistics Division). Since the 1980s, …

Monitoring Living Marine Resources In The Mid‐Atlantic Bight, Northeast Area Monitoring & Assessment Program (Neamap), Virginia Shark Monitoring & Assessment Program (Vasmap), Robert J. Latour, James Gartland, Christopher F. Bonzek

Reports

The NEAMAP Mid‐Atlantic/Southern New England (M‐A/SNE) Near Shore Bottom Trawl Survey is a fishery‐independent monitoring program designed to collect information on the late juvenile and adult stages of the majority of the finfish species and several exploited invertebrates inhabiting the coastal ocean of the Mid‐Atlantic Bight Ecological Production Unit (Figure 1). This survey yields indices of relative abundance, expressed in terms of both number and biomass, spatiotemporal distribution, and length‐frequency data for all species collected by the sampling gear.

VASMAP is a research program that focuses on advancing the scientific enterprise associated with juvenile and adult stages of several shark …

2021 Annual Report Estimating Relative Juvenile Abundance Of Ecologically Important Finfish In The Virginia Portion Of Chesapeake Bay (1 July 2020 – 30 June 2021), Troy D. Tuckey, Mary C. Fabrizio

Reports

The Trawl Survey provides crucial data to state, regional, and national fisheries management agencies, including the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the Mid‐Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The MAFMC recognizes the juvenile trawl survey as one of the key predictors of Summer Flounder recruitment. Annual indices of juvenile abundance have been generated from trawl survey data for species of key recreational and ecological importance in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay. These include Spot, Atlantic Croaker, Weakfish, Summer Flounder, Black Sea Bass, Scup, Striped Bass, White …

Influence Of Gonadal Stage And Ploidy On Human-Pathogenic Vibrio Levels In The Oyster Crassostrea Virginica - Final Report, Corinne Audemard, Ryan Carnegie, Kimberly S. Reece

Reports

To determine whether oyster reproductive status and particularly ploidy influences levels of human-pathogenic Vibrio spp. in oyster tissues was the overall aim of this project

Our project objectives were three-fold:

1) To determine the relationship between oyster gonadal stage and levels of humanpathogenic Vibrio spp. in two separate pairs of genetically related diploid and triploid oysters through analyses of individual oysters conducted during peak Vibrio season in the York River, Virginia;

2) To determine the relationship between oyster ploidy and levels of humanpathogenic Vibrio spp. in those same oysters; and

3) To determine the degree to which farm-level marine aquaculture …