Spatial-Explicit Growth Rate Model of Young Striped Bass in Albemarle Sound: Implications on Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) using GIS

Fish production can be limited by biological and physical factors that occur. In the past, fish production models have considered the modeled system to be homogenous and do not incorporate the spatial environment. However, abiotic factors such as food supply and water quality may differ spatially. Growth rate potential integrates a physiological-based model (bioenergetics) of fish growth with the physical environment. The research integrated the growth rate potential model, with GIS, to spatially map the growth rate potential of juvenile striped bass Morone saxatilis in Albemarle Sound, North Carolina to identify essential fish habitat (EFH), for the species, during the summer and early-fall months. GIS allows for the presentation and analysis of distributional patterns and spatial modeling with a spatially explicit data base. In our approach, GIS provided the necessary platform for mapping spatial data and for conducting spatially explicit modeling. Water quality data (temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity) were obtained from North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF) juvenile seine survey from 2002-2004. Geostatistical methods were used to extend the spatially explicit bioenergetics model into a dynamic environment. Ordinary kriging was used to interpolate the data into two- dimensional transects. ArcView 3.2 was utilized to run the juvenile striped bass model and the "Wisconsin" bioenergetics model. This paper documents and discusses the usefulness of integrating two technologies to predict fish production.