Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

3.4 Results
3.4.1 Distribution and Abundance
Analyses of over 1000 zooplankton samples collected between 1976
and 1981 clearly show that the overall distributions of both red king
(P. camtschatica) and blue king crab (P. platypus) in the southeastern
Bering Sea are restricted to discrete areas along the NAS into Bristol
Bay and east of the Pribilof Islands, respectively (Fig. 3.11).
As
stressed in the annual report (Armstrong et al. 1981), the most striking
feature of this pattern is the associated absence of larvae over
most of the St. George Basin and the middle shelf between 50 m and
100 m. Larvae are only found in the very southern portion of the St.
George Basin, north of Unimak Pass, as part of a nearshore band that
continues to the northeast along the 50 m isobath.
Due to such restricted distribution of king crab larvae, use of
strata delineated in Figure 2.21 to contrast temporal and spatial
distribution and abundance did not work well, as it did for other
decapod groups (see sections 5.0, 6.0., and 7.0).
Not only was the
spatial coverage of interannual sampling quite variable, but only
portions of certain strata ever contained larvae.
Therefore, to
include all stations of a stratum in calculations of mean densities
would always add numerous zeros to the observations.
Areas of greatest
larval king crab occurrence relative to strata are shown in Figure
3.12. Blue king crab larvae occurred in the western half of stratum 9
but not in any other strata.
The majority of high density red king
crab stations fell in southern half of stratum 6, with a few in stratum
556