NFFS71002302080 Statement of Work FINAL For RFQ 07142023.pdf

STATEMENT OF WORK

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) C-Req: NF-FS7100-23-02080

BACKGROUND & PURPOSE:

In 2021, the Bering Sea snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) stock fell to historically low levels.

Synchronous declines in snow crab abundance across the population point to a large-scale mortality event in 2018-2019, although mechanisms to explain these large and unexpected declines remain unclear.

Prevalence of bitter crab disease (BCD), a fatal disease caused by a parasitic dinoflagellate Hematodinium sp., reached all-time highs in immature snow crab prior to the stock collapse, suggesting that disease may have contributed to recent snow crab population declines.

Warming oceans are expected to impact host organisms by increasing both the frequency and intensity of Hematodinium sp. outbreaks. Unprecedented warming in the Bering Sea in the past five years underscores the importance of quantifying the effect of environmental variables on Hematodinium infection, progression and host mortality of snow crab. This project will fill key data gaps in understanding bitter crab disease dynamics by developing Bayesian spatial models using R-INLA to investigate environmental drivers associated with Hematodinium infection. Analyses will support a future manuscript to explore drivers of BCS in the Bering Sea and improve predictive capacity of disease monitoring.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Following PCR analysis of snow crab hemolymph samples, datasets containing infection status diagnosed via both visual methods and molecular assays will be provided to the contractor. Datasets will be compared across eight corresponding years to test for spatiotemporal correlation between the two methods. Specifically, Bayesian spatial models using R-INLA will be developed to investigate environmental drivers (e.g. temperature, sea ice, aragonite saturation Ω and/or pH) associated with the presence of visual and molecular diagnosed Hematodinium infection. This approach will enable the use of statistical models to examine the relative importance of BCD in explaining variability in snow crab abundance across the extent of the EBS survey timeseries.

The work detailed in this project necessitates that the contractor have extensive knowledge of Hematodinium-crab disease systems, possess advanced coding ability in R, and have experience with INLA methodology and the R-INLA package in R. All statistical analyses will be conducted at a marine laboratory or university, and the use of NOAA facilities will not be required. Deliverables will include a final report sent to NOAA, including the technical methodology for model development, R script and associated github repository containing annotation and documentation, models exploring environmental drivers, and eastern Bering Sea disease maps. This is a firm fixed-price service contract and funds allocated to the contractor shall be used for labor as needed to produce the deliverables above.

RENDERING OF DATA PRODUCTS – ENVIRONMENTAL DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN:

NOAA will work with contractor to produce a final dataset, metadata and R script that will be placed on a public GitHub repository to ensure that raw data and modeling results are publicly visible and accessible. This repository link will be included in all relevant peer-reviewed publications. Federal funding sources shall be acknowledged in all publications, and final pre-publication manuscripts will be submitted to the NOAA Institutional Repository located at http://library.noaa.gov/repository after acceptance. NOAA and the contractor will also work together to submit the data to the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), which will provide public access and permanent archiving, within a year of project completion. This is in accordance with the NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) 212-15:

Management of Environmental Data and Information.

IT REQUIREMENTS:

This order will not require assignment of a user account and access to the Department of Commerce

(DOC) data systems. This contractor will not have access to nor use of Government hardware, application software, system software or sensitive data as needed. No service will be performed on federal government property therefore IT security consideration and controls will not be put in place for this procurement.

DELIVERABLE SCHEDULE:

The period of performance is September 1, 2023 to April 30, 2025.

A draft report and preliminary data will be delivered on March 31, 2025. Delivery of the final report and data will be on April 15, 2025.

TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT (TPOC): PROVIDED UPON AWARD

http://library.noaa.gov/repository