Attendance:
Tom Chute, Jim Fair, Harlyn Halvorson, Dvora Hart, Brad Harris, Rick Karney, Alan Kuzirian, Erin Kvpcha, Dale Leavitt, Mike Marind, Diane Murphy, Jake Nogueira, Skip Norgeot, Paul Rago, Ron Smolowitz, Scott Soares, Kevin Stokesbury, and Bethany Walton,

Welcome:
Harlyn Halvorson thanked the Mass. Maritime Academy, Dale Leavitt and Cam Gifford for generously arranging and providing the facilities once again for this meeting. He reminded the group that is the eighth year of the history of the SSWG. At our workshop (Blueprint) in 1999, SSWG recommended that we focus on improved methods for locating, identification and collection of spat in the water column. This led to the creation of the Scallop Enhancement Group who reported at our meeting last April. Today we will return to the topic of improved methods for locating and identifying sea scallops in George's Bank.

Dale Leavitt welcomed the group on behalf of the Southeastern Massachusetts Aquaculture Center. During this past year SEMAC has had a successful effort in raising scallops in the MMA hatchery and still has some available for distribution. He then announced that he would be leaving MMA next month for a teaching and research position in aquaculture at Rogers Williams University in RI. However he will remain as an advisor to SEMAC. An announcement for his replacement has just been released. The position will be a joint appointment between Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, UMass Extension and the Sea Grant Program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The position entails providing technical coordination for the state-sponsored SEMAC administered by Barnstable County and located at MMA.

Rebuilding the Sea Scallop Fisheries Using Area Closures and Rotational Fisheries
Dvora Hart, NFMS, discussed long-term trends in the U.S. sea scallop fishery. After a period of relative stability in the 1950s, there were broad increases in effort and declines in LPUE and biomass in the period 1960-1994. Large year classes during this period gave temporary benefits in terms of increased landings and catch rates, but also served to encourage increases in effort, thereby contributing to the deteriating condition of the stocks.

In 1994, a number of new regulations were instituted, including limited access, effort reduction measures, and area closures. The effort reduction measures, together with good recruitment, have resulted in a dramatic increase in open area catch rates and biomass to levels not seen in over twenty years. Unlike previous periods of strong recruitment, fishing mortality has declined during the last few years, due to limitations in the shucking power of a seven-man crew.

In both Georges Bank and the Mid-Atlantic, large increases in scallop numbers and broadening in the population size- structure were observed after closures of areas to scallop fishing. While not conclusive, the evidence seems to suggest that the closures may have enhanced recruitment.

For further information see "Yield- and biomass-per-recruit analysis for rotational fisheries, with an application to the Atlantic sea scallop (Plactopectin magellancius) Deborah R. Hart Fish. Bull. 101:44-57 (2003).

Examination of Sea Scallop Aggregation Using a Video Survey of Georgia's Bank
Kevin Stokesbury, introduced members of his lab, and summarized their efforts to monitor the sea scallop population in Georgia's Bank. Since 1999 they have been working on five points: stock assessment using video surveys, gear design, environmental assessment, and light history parameters in a special and time consideration. These efforts have focused on the historic fishing grounds in Georgia's Bank, These have included closed areas I and 2. He displayed a graph showing these and landings over time. He pointed out the dramatic catch in 200 where maximal catch was obtained in 3 hours compared to the 200 hours previously required.

In 1996, when the situation was very bleak, the fishermen approached Dr. Rothschild and NMF for help. A dredge survey showed large quantities of scallops in the closed areas. To overcome problems with the drags, they came up with the idea of a video survey. This followed from his previous experience in scuba diving in Nova Scotia to monitor scallop populations. To assess the density of scallops and their special distribution, using a transecting quadrant concept they constructed a 1000 pyramid to which they attached a deep-sea multicam light in the center. This device was rigged to go off a commercial fishing vessel with hydraulic control. This system was first calibrated in a tank at Univ. Mass Dartmouth and corrected for the curvature of the lens.

They surveyed a grid pattern, which are 0.85 nautical mikes from station to station. We drop it 4 times. The area of viewing is 2.8 meters square. One scallop per 2,8 meters square is actually a high density of scallops. The images are taped, brought bask to the laboratory where scallops are identified, the images digitized and the number and size recorded. Starfish are also recorded. Over 1700 images have been recorded thus far representing 700 hours of work. Scallop are also collected by fishermen, brought to the lab and dissected.

He reviewed the regions of the southern channel, which they have surveyed since 1999. The areas they have focused on include the Nantucket Light Ship, and Closed Area two. In 1994 the yield from these areas was 19.6 M pounds, 1.28 in 2000, and now it is up to 28 M pounds. In closed area one the density rose from 7.1 to 13.2 M pounds.

They have tried to design their surveys to address habitat concerns from the effects of dragging. This involves characterizing the substrata (sand, and pebbles on the Wentworth scale), which may be more dramatic than cobble substrata. Their data shows more heterogeneity than the previous maps with fewer sampling sites. They surveyed two control areas before and after fishing and showed pictures of the differences. In the 2002 survey they started a project to relate the distribution of starfish to scallops.

In summary with their data they are attempting to build a stock assessment base to overlay on the GIS map for fisheries management in addition to building a video library. They are also conducting some scallop tagging experiments, with the help of fishermen, to measure growth and mobility, and ultimately develop site-specific growth equations.

Plans for Sea Test of the Scallop Imaging System
Jonathan Howland served as a spokesman for the Scallop Enhancement Group, who will be going to sea in a couple of days to test their imaging system. As discussed in our last SSWG meeting, this imaging system borrows technology developed in part for the Alvin and WHOI deep-sea project and the plankton recorder developed by Scott Gallagher. The new system will permit continuous recording of hundreds of thousands of pictures taken from a sled moving over the ocean floor.

This week we will be using the imaging system on an AUV, that will depart from the mother ship, take pictures on the sea floor and return to the ship. This is a highly collaborative effort involving a Northeastern NSF project called SENSIS. Since you cannot use fire wire over a great distance of cable, single pictures will be taken and sent over fiber optic cable. He described the sled, strobe, camera and associated gear, and the crane used to lower and retrieve the sled from the ship. The camera will take 15 pictures per second. He showed pictures taken from an autonomous vehicle taken on a trip to Puerto Rico, and off the Woods Hole dock - raw image and processed picture to demonstrate feasibility. When using the sled, to size an object an altimeter is included to give the measurement of how far the camera is above the ocean floor. Since the towing vessel can not go slow enough to avoid the sled contacting objects on the ocean floor, a forward looking sonar is included on the sled.

As also described last April by Sanjay Tiwari of WHOI, polarizing microscopy will be used to identify scallop spat. Using unique identifying colored markers, the Debor Transform, they are able identify species by comparison to a set of known standards. one can determine the degree of certainty of the identification of the unknown.

In the next couple of days an autonomous vessel will be used. In the next couple of months we will test the sled taking advantage of some of the scheduled cruises in the next few months. He described some of the specifications of the submerged vehicle, ship and sled currently being addressed in preparation of their use. He biggest problem he sees is getting this heavy devise off the boat, to the ocean floor and back without mishap.

The ultimate goal is to count and size the scallops observed, and estimate the biomass over the area covered. It would be useful then to compare this data with that described earlier by Kevin Stokesbury. For accurate size distribution, stereo imagery will be required.

DNA analysis of Sea Scallop Diversity Alan Kuzirian reported that Hemant Chickarmane, who reported to SSWG last April, has most of the data in manuscript form. He will summarize it here. This project was driven by concerns about stock enhancement on the sea bottom floor. He reminded us that spat get caught and moved with the currents in Georgia's Bank. Therefore they do not settle everywhere but are concentrated in selected areas. For enhancement it would be desirable to put spat collectors in these specific areas. Where warm and cold waters meet, a convergent area is generated along which the spat accumulate. These move not only spatially but during the day / night cycle move also vertically. These convergent areas can be identified from satellite imaging. Using fishing boats, plankton was collected, containing larvae, which then could be analyzed. So how can you separate out the larvae looking at the video plankton recorder? As discussed earlier, polarizing light permits species identification. Our problem was, after sampling n Georgia's Bank to develop a genetic means to test the reliability of the video plankton recorder.

Samples were brought back to the laboratory and species-specific primers (see minutes SSWG April, 2002) were developed to confirm larval identification and separate out different populations. DNA was extracted from a small piece of mantle tissue, without killing the organisms. After exposing each sample to PCR techniques, the DNA's were analyzed. With the specific primers, short segments of DNA are generated. The subsequent banding patterns of these DNA fragments on agarose gels serve not only for populations, species as well as individual identification. Primers were found that identified phytopectin and other bivalves that are found in Georgia's Bank. Hemant also identified a satellite primer that recognizes only phytopectin, irrespective of the life stage of the animal. The findings with Bay Scallops are that the populations are very homogeneous. In contrast heterogeneity was found when this technique was applied to oysters collected on Martha's Vineyard. In response to a question as to whether scallops in the mid Atlantic are genetically identical to those from Georgia's Bank, he replied that they have not as yet been tested.

Update Mass Aquaculture Program
Scott Soares reported that the State budget is in trouble and many programs are being cut. The aquaculture program has been saved to some degree as a result of the bond initiative that passed the House last year. This initiative supports the regional aquaculture centers and the mini-grant programs. The Western Center has moved to Univ. Mass Amherst. The aquaculture grant program was not offered. We are in the process of putting together a number of presentations for the new Secretary of Food and Agriculture. A number of consolidation recommendations have been presented to the Secretary. We can still help on the permitting side.

Offshore Aquaculture
Harlyn Halvorson thanked the group for their suggestions to the draft report "Recommendations for Operational Framework for Offshore Aquaculture in the EEZ" presented by Bob Rheault and myself. These, and others from the three other regional meetings have been collected and will be reviewed by the committee in March for revision of the document and for presentation to NOAA and the U.S. Oceans Committee next summer.

Next Meeting
No decision was made for the time of the Next Meeting, however two topics were suggested for future meetings. Ron Smolowitz suggested Amendment 10, which could deal with predator control and the impacts of research on aquaculture. Paul Rago suggested a session on reproductive physiology and fertilization on sea scallops would be timely as a result of the enormous production of gametes in recent years. You will be notified as soon as a topic and date is set for the next meeting.

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Dr. Harlyn Halvorson

Director PCTMB

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