Effect of a fish stock's demographic structure on offspring survival and sensitivity to climate

Stige, L.C., Yaragina, N., Langangen, Ø., Bogstad, B., Stenseth, N.C, & Ottersen, G.

Significance

It is feared that loss of old and large spawners impairs heavily fished fish stocks’ reproductive capacity and increases their sensitivity to environmental fluctuations. The Barents Sea cod is the world’s largest cod stock and has been reported to show increased temperature–recruitment associations in periods with predominantly young and small spawners. We here investigate the possible causal basis for the link between demographic structure and recruitment by analyzing long-term egg survey data. Results support a link between demographic structure and abundance and distributional extent of eggs but not between egg distribution and recruitment. These results question whether the benefits of a wide spatiotemporal distribution of spawning are of quantitative importance for recruitment.

Abstract

Commercial fishing generally removes large and old individuals from fish stocks, reducing mean age and age diversity among spawners. It is feared that these demographic changes lead to lower and more variable recruitment to the stocks. A key proposed pathway is that juvenation and reduced size distribution causes reduced ranges in spawning period, spawning location, and egg buoyancy; this is proposed to lead to reduced spatial distribution of fish eggs and larvae, more homogeneous ambient environmental conditions within each year-class, and reduced buffering against negative environmental influences. However, few, if any, studies have confirmed a causal link from spawning stock demographic structure through egg and larval distribution to year class strength at recruitment. We here show that high mean age and size in the spawning stock of Barents Sea cod (Gadus morhua) is positively associated with high abundance and wide spatiotemporal distribution of cod eggs. We find, however, no support for the hypothesis that a wide egg distribution leads to higher recruitment or a weaker recruitment–temperature correlation. These results are based on statistical analyses of a spatially resolved data set on cod eggs covering a period (1959−1993) with large changes in biomass and demographic structure of spawners. The analyses also account for significant effects of spawning stock biomass and a liver condition index on egg abundance and distribution. Our results suggest that the buffering effect of a geographically wide distribution of eggs and larvae on fish recruitment may be insignificant compared with other impacts.

 

Published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Jan 23, 2017. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1621040114 Link here.

 

 

Published Jan. 30, 2017 11:30 AM - Last modified Jan. 30, 2017 11:30 AM