Fatty Acid Analysis as Evidence for Winter Migration of Age-0 Herring in Prince William Sound, 2010-2012, EVOS Herring Program

These data are part of the Herring Program of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which is a multi-faceted study to determine why herring populations in Prince William Sound (PWS) remain depressed since the early 1990s.

The current herring monitoring program assumes age-0 herring remain in their nursery bays over winter. This project tested the assumption of no migration by monitoring the fatty acid composition of wild age-0 herring over winter in PWS, and in a laboratory study. The dataset is five comma-separated value (csv) files exported from a Microsoft Access database. Herring were sampled from various bays in eastern and western PWS in early winter and repeated at the end of winter in 2010 - 2012, under the EVOS Herring Survey program (EVOS project numbers 12120111-I, 13120111-I). For the laboratory component testing the validity of the fatty acid approach, we used fish collected near the NOAA Auke Bay Laboratory (ABL, Juneau, Alaska). Fish were collected by beach seine in autumn 2011, transferred to ABL and divided into two groups. The groups were fed different diets to create two groups with distinct fatty acid compositions. Each of the groups had a fasted component and a second component that was fed a reduced ration to generate an energy deficit. Captive fish were sampled for fatty acid analysis through April 2012.

The file named Custody contains field collection information. The file named BioData includes length and weight measurements, and the weight of fish stomach contents. The file named RNADNA includes the ratio of ribonucleic acid (RNA) to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contents of herring white muscle tissue, which were used as an indicator of the relative amount of energy individual fish were allocating towards growth (with higher RNA/DNA reflecting greater protein synthesis rates). The file named FattyAcid contains fatty acid concentration data as determined by gas chromatography and mass spectrophotometry at ABL. The file named ProxComp contains the moisture, ash, lipid, and protein content of homogenized whole herring as a percentage of wet tissue mass.