A 200 Year Archeozoological Record of Pacific Cod Life History as Revealed Through Ion Microprobe Oxygen Isotope Ratios in Otoliths

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

Pacific cod is an abundant marine fish species inhabiting the Alaska continental shelf whose importance for food spanned centuries from modern industrial fisheries back to traditional subsistence use by Alutiiq communities. Intact fossilized Pacific cod otoliths found at archeological sites in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) provided a unique opportunity to explore the interactions between climate and fish populations on temporal scales not typically available to modern ecologists. Using otoliths recovered from archeological sites dated from 200+, 100+ years before present (YBP) along with modern collections in Aialik Bay, Alaska (Fig. 1) we analyzed oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) to reconstruct the near shore temperature regime and Pacific cod habitat use in the GOA since the Little Ice Age.