Connecting subsistence harvest and marine ecology: A cluster analysis of communities by fishing and hunting patterns

Abstract

Alaska Native subsistence hunters and fishers are engaged in environmental sampling, influenced by harvest technology and cultural preferences as well as biogeographical factors. We compared subsistence harvest patterns in 35 communities along the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort coasts of Alaska to identify affinities and groupings, and to compare those results with previous ecological analyses done for the same region. We used hierarchical cluster analysis to reveal spatial patterns in subsistence harvest records of coastal Alaska Native villages from the southern Bering Sea to the Beaufort Sea. Three main clusters were identified, correlating strongly with geography. The main division separates coastal villages of western Alaska from arctic villages along the northern Chukchi and Beaufort Seas and on islands of the Bering Sea. K-means groupings corroborate this result, with some differences. The second node splits the arctic villages, along the Chukchi, Beaufort and northern Bering Seas, where marine mammals dominate the harvest, from those on islands of the Bering Sea, characterized by seabird and seal harvests. These patterns closely resemble eco-regions proposed on biological grounds. Biogeography thus appears to be a significant factor in groupings by harvest characteristics, suggesting that subsistence harvests are a viable form of ecosystem sampling.