Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

ut larvae were very abundant in 61-70 m depth about 40-50 km off Port
Moller (stratum II).
By early August, 1982, no red king crab larvae were found from
western Unimak Island through stratum I and beyond to Port Moller
(Fig. 3.15).
Very low densities of 100-300/100 m 2 were sampled about
the 50 m isobath off Port Moller.
a transect line off Port Heiden.
Higher densities were found only on
Here again, shallow stations nearshore
had less than 100 larvae/100 m 2 while stations betweem 41-60 m
averaged 1535/100 m 2 (Fig. 3.15).
It is not known whether the
disappearance of larvae up to Cape Seniavin represents northeasterly
transport out of stratum I or earlier metamorphosis to the benthos in
the westerly area of hatch (see Section 3.4.3 for further discussion).
Blue King Crab:
Few samples were taken in the area of blue king crab
abundance east of the Pribilof Islands (Figs. 3.7a and b).
Most larvae
were found 50-90 km east of St. Paul and St. George Islands, and none
were caught at five nearshore stations about St. Paul (Fig. 3.11).
Densities were low compared to areas of larval king crab abundance.
The highest zoeal density was 1550 larvae/100 m 2 (n = 9, SD = + 478;
all years combined).
3.4.2 Interannual Variations
There were too little data in strata 9 and 10 (Figs. 3.11 and 3.12)
to note differences in abundance of blue king crab year to year.
Only
the nearshore of the NAS was sampled with some regularity, although the
number of annual stations were few.
As previously noted, two new
567