Abundance, Recruitment, And Environmental Forcing Of Kodiak Red King Crab

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2009Commercial harvests of red king crab Paralithodes camtschaticus around Kodiak Island, Alaska increased rapidly in the 1960s to a peak of 42,800 mt in 1965. Stock abundance declined sharply in the late 1960s, moderated in the 1970s, and crashed in the early 1980s. The stock has not recovered despite a commercial fishery closure since 1983. To better understand the rise, collapse, and continued depleted status of the red king crab stock around Kodiak Island, I conducted a retrospective analysis with three primary objectives: (1) reconstruct spawning stock abundance and recruitment during 1960-2004; (2) explore stock-recruit relationships; and (3) examine ecological influences on crab recruitment. A population dynamics model was used to estimate abundance, recruitment, and fishing and natural mortalities. Three male and four female "stages" were estimated using catch composition data from the fishery (1960-1982) and pot (1972-1986) and trawl (1986-2004) surveys. Male abundance was estimated for 1960-2004, but limited data constrained female estimates to 1972-2004. Strong crab recruitment facilitated increased fishery capitalization during the 1960s, but the high harvest rates were not sustainable, likely due to reproductive failure associated with sex ratios skewed toward females. To examine spawner-recruitment (S-R) relationships for the Kodiak stock, I considered lags of 5-8 years between reproduction and recruitment and, due to limited female data, two currencies of male abundance as a proxy for spawners: (1) all males ?125 mm carapace length (CL); and (2) legal males (?145 mm CL). Model selection involved AICc, the Akaike Information Criterion corrected for small sample size. An autocorrelated Ricker model using all males and a 5-year lag, with the time series separated into three productivity periods corresponding to different ecological regimes, minimized AIC c values. Depensation at low stock sizes was not detected. Potential effects of selected biotic and abiotic factors on early life survival by Kodiak red king crab were examined by extending the S-R relationship. Results suggested a strong negative influence of Pacific cod Gadus macrocephalus on crab recruitment. Thus, increased cod abundance and a nearshore shift in cod distribution likely impeded crab stock rebuilding

A Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Death of the Other Understood as Event

This is a phenomenological description of what is happening when we experience the death of an other that interprets surviving or living on after such death by employing the term event. This term of art from phenomenology and hermeneutics is used to describe a disruptive and transformative experience of singularity. I maintain that the death of the other is an experience of an event because such death is unpredictable or without a horizon of expectation, excessive or without any principle of sufficient reason, and transformative or a death of the world itself

Preparing for future threats and regional challenges

행사명 : Academic Symposiu

North Korean Illicit Activities and Sanctions: A National Security Dilemma

North Korea is a nation-state that for many years (including the years following the Cold War) has been off of the main radar for American foreign policy. Whether it was because the United States was worried about other issues such as problems in the Balkans in the 1990s, or fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the new millennium, challenges from the DPRK never seemed to be at the top of the priorities list with American foreign policy makers. This has now changed. It has become obvious to the world that North Korea has an active nuclear weapons program, and that Pyongyang has not been shy about threatening to use it. It is also obvious that North Korea has long and short range ballistic missiles that can not only threaten the region but potentially the United States, and through proliferation, areas as far away as the Middle East. Since North Korea is now not only acknowledged as a threat to the international order but, in a very potentially violent way, to the American homeland, one wonders, how does this highly threatening and possibly the most sanctioned regime-continue to survive? The answer is largely through North Korea’s illicit activities— activities that support and enable the Kim family regime

Readying Extension for the Systematic Analysis of Large Qualitative Data Sets

Land-grant Extension institutions face increasing expectations to use data to communicate value and drive program and organizational development. In this article, we introduce the University of Wisconsin–Extension Data Jam Initiative, an integrated qualitative software, methods, and data analysis curriculum. The Data Jam Initiative is an evaluation capacity building framework for collaborative, mentorship-based analysis sessions across an institution and across disciplines. Through sharing exemplar applications of this curriculum, we illustrate how the Data Jam Initiative prepares Extension institutions for using qualitative data in service of communication to stakeholders, program development, and organizational growth