Final Technical Report: - Southwest Fisheries Science Center - NOAA

Table of Contents
Acronyms and Abbreviations .................................................................................................. xiii
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................xiv
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................. xv
1.0 Objective ...............................................................................................................................1
2.0 Background ...........................................................................................................................2
3.0 Materials and Methods ..........................................................................................................5
3.1 Data Sources ......................................................................................................................5
3.1.1 Marine Mammal Surveys ............................................................................................5
3.1.2 In situ Oceanographic Measurements ..........................................................................8
3.1.3 Remotely Sensed Oceanographic Measurements .........................................................8
3.1.4 Water Depth and Bottom Slope ...................................................................................9
3.1.5 Mid-trophic Sampling with Net Tows and Acoustic Backscatter ................................ 10
3.2 Oceanographic Data Interpolation .................................................................................... 12
3.3 Modeling Framework....................................................................................................... 15
3.3.1 GLM and GAM Models ............................................................................................ 15
3.3.2 CART Tree-based Models ......................................................................................... 19
3.4 Model Scale: Resolution and Extent ................................................................................. 19
3.5 Model Selection ............................................................................................................... 20
3.5.1 California Current Ecosystem Models ....................................................................... 21
3.5.2 Eastern Tropical Pacific Models ................................................................................ 27
3.5.3 Line-transect densities for unmodeled species............................................................ 31
3.6 Variance Estimation ......................................................................................................... 35
3.7 Inclusion of Prey Indices from Net Tow and Acoustic Backscatter Data in Models .......... 36
3.8 Seasonality ...................................................................................................................... 37
3.9 Model Output and Visualization Software ........................................................................ 39
4.0 Results and Accomplishments ............................................................................................. 41
4.1 Oceanographic Data Interpolation .................................................................................... 41
iv