Development of a statistical adaptive monitoring framework for sea otters in Glacier Bay, Alaska | P15AS00392

Opportunity Information: Apply for P15AS00392

The grant opportunity titled "Development of a statistical adaptive monitoring framework for sea otters in Glacier Bay, Alaska" is a National Park Service (NPS) cooperative agreement focused on improving how sea otters are monitored as a key indicator of ecosystem change in Glacier Bay. It comes out of the Southeast Alaska Network (SEAN) Vital Signs Monitoring Plan, which identified marine predators as an important "vital sign" for tracking the health and direction of the Glacier Bay ecosystem over time. Early on, the idea was to use a multi-species or community-level monitoring approach that had been used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Reviews of those methods, however, suggested they did not provide strong statistical power to detect trends for any single species, meaning meaningful changes could be missed or blurred when looking across many species at once. Because of that limitation, SEAN moved away from a community-based design and toward choosing one or more indicator species that could be monitored more effectively.

Sea otters emerged as the top priority indicator species based on input from marine ecologists familiar with Glacier Bay. The sea otter was not just chosen for ecological importance, but also because there is an unusually strong foundation of existing research to build on. For roughly two decades, USGS work in and around Glacier Bay has generated extensive data on sea otter abundance, foraging behavior, and associated benthic invertebrate communities. This long-running dataset makes it possible to design a monitoring program that is grounded in real baseline conditions and informed by how sea otters and their prey have already been changing.

The ecological context behind the project is central to why the monitoring framework matters. Sea otters were historically removed from southeastern Alaska by the fur trade prior to 1911, then reintroduced by the State of Alaska in the 1960s. After reintroduction, populations grew rapidly across the region and sea otters expanded into Glacier Bay around 1993. Since entering Glacier Bay, their numbers have increased at an exceptionally high estimated rate (reported as 42 percent per year in the cited work). Because sea otters are major predators of nearshore invertebrates, their recovery can restructure coastal ecosystems. Their top-down effects are well documented in rocky reef environments in the North Pacific, where otter predation can dramatically reduce populations of grazers and alter kelp and community composition. Glacier Bay is especially interesting because much of its nearshore habitat includes unconsolidated sediments rather than hard rocky substrate, and scientists want to better understand how otter-driven food web effects play out in these different conditions, including both top-down predation impacts and bottom-up responses linked to prey availability and habitat.

The core purpose of the funded project is to develop a statistical monitoring framework that produces an adaptive sampling and survey design for estimating sea otter abundance in Glacier Bay as efficiently and reliably as possible. In practical terms, the project is about using statistics to design a monitoring program that can adjust to changing conditions, focus effort where it improves accuracy the most, and make the best use of limited time and funding while still producing trend-sensitive abundance estimates. This improved monitoring design is intended to serve as a foundation for broader ecological understanding, because reliable abundance estimates are needed to interpret how sea otters are influencing the nearshore benthic food web and how the system, in turn, may be influencing sea otter distribution and population dynamics.

Administratively, the opportunity is a discretionary award offered as a cooperative agreement, meaning the NPS expects substantial involvement with the recipient during the project rather than a simple pass-through grant. It is categorized under natural resources and carries CFDA number 15.944. Eligible applicants are public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, reflecting the research-intensive and statistical nature of the work. The opportunity anticipated a single award with an award ceiling of $650,000. The listed funding opportunity number is P15AS00392, and the original closing date was September 15, 2015.

• The National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Development of a statistical adaptive monitoring framework for sea otters in Glacier Bay, Alaska" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.944.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2015-09-05.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2015-09-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $650,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P15AS00392

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