Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

eastern Bering Sea to date and, for many taxa, over their entire range
from the Bering Sea through the Gulf of Alaska and farther south.
In
reviewing the literature on shrimp and crabs, we were struck by the
paucity of studies on the population dynamics and general ecology of
larval decapod stages along the west coast of the United States and
Canada.
Investigations such as Lough's (1976) along Oregon that focus
on decapod larvae are rare (see literature reviews in Section 3.0-7.0).
Rather, such larval stages are studied in laboratories while field
investigations tend to deal more with juvenile and adult populations.
Zooplankton investigations tend to focus on holoplanktonic taxa such as
copepods without much attention given meroplanktonic groups.
Yet
factors such as species distribution, ranges and fluctuations in
abundance of benthic adult populations may largely be explained by responses
and survival of pelagic larvae (Bakun et al. 1982; Incze 1983;
Young and Hazlett 1978).
A notable exception in the pattern of few,
comprehensive studies of larval crab populations are those done over the
last several years on the eastern U.S. coast (Grant 1977; Johnson 1982,
McConaugn et al. in press; Smyth 198U), which have greatly increased
knowledge of estuarine and nearsnore larval crab biology.
Such information
increases the accuracy of environmental impact predictions
stemming from numerous projects in that region.
1.3 Format of this Report
This contract was established to provide information on larval decapods
to federal agencies considering ramifications of oil and gas developand
to aid them in devising management policy to mitigate possible impacts.
502