Impact of the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) on salmon fisheries in Monterey Bay, California

To assess the impact of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) on salmon fisheries in the Monterey Bay region of California, the percentages of hooked fish taken by sea lions in commercial and recreational salmon fisheries were estimated from 1997 to 1999. Onboard surveys of sea lion interactions with the commercial and recreational f isheries and dockside interviews with fishermen after their return to port were conducted in the ports of Santa Cruz, Moss Landing, and Monterey. Approximately 1745 hours of onboard and dockside surveys were conducted—924 hours in the commercial fishery and 821 hours in the recreational fishery (commercial passenger fishing vessels [CPFVs] and personal skiffs combined). Adult male California sea lions were responsible for 98.4% of the observed depredations of hooked salmon in the commercial and recreational fisheries in Monterey Bay. Mean annual percentages of hooked salmon taken by sea lions ranged from 8.5% to 28.6% in the commercial fishery, 2.2% to 18.36% in the CPFVs, and 4.0% to 17.5% in the personal skiff fishery. Depredation levels in the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries were greatest in 1998—likely a result of the large El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event that occurred from 1997 to 1998 that reduced natural prey resources. Commercial fishermen lost an estimated $18,031−$60,570 of gear and $225,833−$498,076 worth of salmon as a result of interactions with sea lions. Approximately 1.4−6.2% of the available salmon population was removed from the system as a result of sea lion interactions with the fishery. Assessing the impact of a growing sea lion population on fisheries stocks is difficult, but may be necessary for effective fisheries management

Food habits of California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) and their impact on Salmonid Fisheries in Monterey Bay, California

In the ocean commercial troll and recreational salmon fishery in Monterey Bay California, California sea lions (Zalophus califomianus) will swim near or follow fishing boats and will depredate fish once hooked. The objectives of the study were to determine the percentage of salmon taken by pinnipeds in commercial and recreational fisheries, identify relative importance of prey items seasonally consumed by sea lions, and determine the proportion of salmonids in the sea lion diet on a seasonal basis. From April 1997 through September 1998, 1041 hours of onboard and dockside surveys of the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries were conducted at the three ports in Monterey Bay, California. Sea lions depreadated 7.9 % of the fish hooked in the commercial fishery in 1997 and 28.6 % in 1998,8.4 % (1997) and 18.3 % (1998) of the CPFV fishery, and 15.6 % (1997) and 17.5 % (1998) of the private skiff fishery. Increased depredation rates in both the commercial and recreational salmon fisheries in 1998 were most likely the result of the large EI Nino Southern Oscillation event that occurred in 1997-1998 during which a greater number of sea lions were present in central California. Prey hardparts identified in sea lion fecal samples collected in Monterey Bay indicated that schooling fishes were the predominant prey fish species, such as market squid (Loligo opalescens), Pacific sardine (Sardinops caeruleus), northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax), and rockfish (Sebastes sp.). Sea lions consumed similar prey species in the summer and fall 1997, winter 1997-98, and spring 1998 (PSI> 70.0) with market squid and northern anchovy being the dominant prey species. However, prey composition changed significantly during the summer 1998 and fall 1998 (PSI < 46.0) because of the increased importance of sardine and rockfish in the diet and the decreased importance of market squid. This report does not intend to imply that salmonids are not a prey species for pinnipeds in the Monterey Bay region, but highlights the difficulties encountered in establishing the role of salmonids in the pinniped diet when analyzing fecal samples. (PDF contains 38 pages)

Model for dilepton rates from a fireball

We calculate the dilepton emission rate from a fireball created in an ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collision. For the partonic phase, we complement the perturbative results by a phenomenological approach based on lattice QCD results, whereas in the hadronic phase temperature and finite baryon density effects on the spectral function are considered. The resulting rates are compared to data from CERES/NA45.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Talk given at 15th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2001), Stony Brook, New York, 15-20 Jan 200

Extensions and further applications of the nonlocal Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model

The nonlocal Polyakov-loop-extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model is further improved by including momentum-dependent wave-function renormalization in the quark quasiparticle propagator. Both two- and three-flavor versions of this improved PNJL model are discussed, the latter with inclusion of the (nonlocal) 't Hooft-Kobayashi-Maskawa determinant interaction in order to account for the axial U(1) anomaly. Thermodynamics and phases are investigated and compared with recent lattice-QCD results.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables; minor changes compared to v1; extended conclusion

Thermodynamics of a three-flavor nonlocal Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model

The present work generalizes a nonlocal version of the Polyakov loop-extended Nambu and Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model to the case of three active quark flavors, with inclusion of the axial U(1) anomaly. Gluon dynamics is incorporated through a gluonic background field, expressed in terms of the Polyakov loop. The thermodynamics of the nonlocal PNJL model accounts for both chiral and deconfinement transitions. Our results obtained in mean-field approximation are compared to lattice QCD results for $N_\text{f}=2+1$ quark flavors. Additional pionic and kaonic contributions to the pressure are calculated in random phase approximation. Finally, this nonlocal 3-flavor PNJL model is applied to the finite density region of the QCD phase diagram. It is confirmed that the existence and location of a critical point in this phase diagram depends sensitively on the strength of the axial U(1) breaking interaction.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures, minor changes compared to v

Thermodynamics and quark susceptibilities: a Monte-Carlo approach to the PNJL model

The Monte-Carlo method is applied to the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. This leads beyond the saddle-point approximation in a mean-field calculation and introduces fluctuations around the mean fields. We study the impact of fluctuations on the thermodynamics of the model, both in the case of pure gauge theory and including two quark flavors. In the two-flavor case, we calculate the second-order Taylor expansion coefficients of the thermodynamic grand canonical partition function with respect to the quark chemical potential and present a comparison with extrapolations from lattice QCD. We show that the introduction of fluctuations produces only small changes in the behavior of the order parameters for chiral symmetry restoration and the deconfinement transition. On the other hand, we find that fluctuations are necessary in order to reproduce lattice data for the flavor non-diagonal quark susceptibilities. Of particular importance are pion fields, the contribution of which is strictly zero in the saddle point approximation

Chiral Dynamics of Deeply Bound Pionic Atoms

We present and discuss a systematic calculation, based on two-loop chiral perturbation theory, of the pion-nuclear s-wave optical potential. A proper treatment of the explicit energy dependence of the off-shell pion self-energy together with (electromagnetic) gauge invariance of the Klein-Gordon equation turns out to be crucial. Accurate data for the binding energies and widths of the 1s and 2p levels in pionic ^{205}Pb and ^{207}Pb are well reproduced, and the notorious "missing repulsion" in the pion-nuclear s-wave optical potential is accounted for. The connection with the in-medium change of the pion decay constant is clarified.Comment: preprint ECT*-02-16, 4 pages, 3 figure