Add justification for species list?

[MargaretSiple-NOAA]

During tech review, Sarah asked how we decide which species are going to be included in the report. I was wondering if we should write something to this effect in the Methods section. I also propose removing dark rockfish (it's ~3 data points) from GOA 2023. This is not super urgent but it has come up before so I do think it would be good to include.

[Ned-Laman-NOAA]

To answer Sarah's question, we've been reproducing the same list of species that we've historically summarized for decades and the rubric behind their selection is lost in the mists of time. We don't have to be hidebound by the past though. I think we could write a solid and simple justification based on the FMP species addressed in the regional SAFEs with an added minimum prevalence or N constraint so that results are meaningful. I think this might open us up to having to address complexes as they are handled in the SAFEs (e.g., ORocks or Skates), but I think there may be some merit to paralleling the SAFEs since I have to think our main readership of the DPRs is SSMA. That said, we should probably informally ask SSMA authors of complexes whether they'd prefer to see DPR summaries by nominal species or by species complex before we implement a change.

[vszalay]

The decision of which species to include in the Data Report was made well before my time without any explicitly stated justification. Having said that, almost all flatfishes and rockfishes caught in any "significant" quantities are in the report, as well as the most abundant roundfishes (PLK, COD, sablefish, grenadier etc.). I believe (and agree) that the intent was (and should be) to include all species of commercial importance , and in some cases, where their abundance justify it,also some species of ecological importance (e.g. ATF, YIL). Based on this logic, I fully agree with Sarah that it doesn't make any sense to include dark rockfish. I've questioned the inclusion of this species for a long time, but never got around to kicking it out of the report....perhaps for sentimental reasons :-)

So, I recommend we add a sentence in Methods justifying the choice of which species to include in the report. Something like: "All commercially important species and some species of ecological importance, based on their relatively high abundance, are included in this report..."

On Tue, Jan 2, 2024 at 4:00 PM Margaret Siple @.***> wrote:

During tech review, Sarah asked how we decide which species are going to be included in the report. I was wondering if we should write something to this effect in the Methods section. I also propose removing dark rockfish (it's ~3 data points) from GOA 2023. This is not super urgent but it has come up before so I do think it would be good to include.

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-- Paul G von Szalay, MSc. Research Fishery Biologist Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries 7600 Sand Point Way, NE Seattle, WA 98115 206-526-4153 @.***

[MargaretSiple-NOAA]

Thanks Ned and Paul. Roger that on dark rockfish.

For the GOA 2023 DPR, how about something like the following:

"Detailed, species-specific results are presented for commercially important groundfish species. Here, we present data for all individual groundfish species with stock assessments. We also present data for some representative flatfish, rockfish, skate, and thornyhead species, and a selection of other species based on relatively high abundance. "

Is that too wishy-washy? Doing the complexes is not hard it would just take a little extra time so I think starting that practice with the AI 2024 Plan Team presentation would be a good idea.

For my notes, these are the SAFE species/complexes for GOA: ✅ = already in the dpr 🌈=complex 🚫 = not in dpr

✅Alaska Sablefish ✅Arrowtooth Flounder ✅Atka Mackerel 🌈Deep-water Flatfish (Dover sole, Greenland turbot, and deepsea sole) 🌈Demersal Shelf Rockfish (yelloweye, quillback, copper, rosethorn, China, canary, and tiger rockfish) ✅Dusky Rockfish ✅Flathead Sole Forage Fish ✅Grenadier ✅Northern Rockfish ✅Northern and Southern Rock Sole 🚫Octopus 🌈Other Rockfish (China rockfish, copper, greenstriped, harlequin, quillback, redbanded, rosethorn, sharpchin, silvergray, tiger, vermillion, yelloweye) ✅Pacific Cod ✅Pacific Ocean Perch ✅Pollock - Walleye ✅Rex Sole 🌈Rougheye and Blackspotted Rockfish 🌈Shallow-Water Flatfish (Northern rock sole , Southern rock sole, Yellowfin sole, Starry flounder, Butter sole, English sole, Alaska plaice, Sand sole) 🌈Sharks (spiny dogfish, + sleeper salmon and other sharks) ✅Shortraker Rockfish 🌈Skates (all the skates) 🌈Thornyheads (short- and long-spine)

[Ned-Laman-NOAA]

Thanks, Megsie.

What if the text said something like "Taxa reported here were selected on the basis of their inclusion in a fishery management plan (FMP), including species complexes like deep-water flatfishes and rougheye-blackspotted rockfish, as well as on the basis of their presumed importance in the ecosystem represented by proxy as their relatively high abundance in trawl samples." ? Obviously not perfect or perhaps even grammatical, but another take on how to strengthen and shorten the language.

I support the inclusion of complexes that have their own SAFE chapters and think this will actually be a boon to the SAs who write about them.

[MargaretSiple-NOAA]

Sorry I'm just getting back to this. I will add this statement to the results section of the report, with one change: I think we should take out the thing about presumed ecosystem importance being proportional to their abundance in the trawls, because we have so many survey species that are of ecosystem importance because of their presence in ESRs and other ecosystem-relevant products, but aren't necessarily 'frequent catches' in the survey. With my editorial changes, the resulting sentence is:

Taxa reported here were selected based on 1) their inclusion in a fishery management plan (FMP), including species complexes like deep-water flatfishes and rougheye-blackspotted rockfish, and 2) their presumed importance in the ecosystem.

I may also take out the mention of species complexes just for the 2023 GOA report because we did not include complexes in this report. But I'll add code for the complexes and we can include them starting with the AI 2024 report.