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Bauer, R. K., Stepputtis, D., Gräwe, U., Zimmermann, C., & Hammer, C. (2013). Wind-induced variability in coastal larval retention areas: a case study on Western Baltic spring-spawning herring. Fisheries Oceanography, .
Résumé: The investigation of larval dispersal and retention, their variability and dependence on wind conditions, has become a major topic in fisheries research owing to potential effects on stock recruitment and stock structuring. The present study quantifies the wind-induced variability of larval retention of herring in a highly productive coastal lagoon of the Western Baltic Sea. This lagoon, the Greifswalder Bodden, represents the main spawning area of Western Baltic Spring-Spawning Herring, a stock that has recently undergone a continuous decline in recruitment. The study tests whether this decline was related to changes in larval retention, more precisely to changes in wind conditions, the main forcing of the lagoon's circulation. To answer this, a model approach was applied. Larvae were tracked as Lagrangian drifters under constant and variable wind conditions, examining the main drift patterns and reconstructing the incidents during the period of recruitment decline. For the latter, weekly cohorts of virtual larvae were released in the lagoon over the entire spawning period (April–June; \textgreater16 weeks). The fraction of retained larvae per cohort was related to observed larval abundances. On this basis, a new retention index was defined to evaluate the annual larval retention. The results presented cannot explain the observed recruitment decline but characterize the lagoon as an important larval retention area by virtue of unsteady wind conditions that prevent a steady outflow of larvae.
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Brosset, P., Lloret, J., Munoz, M., Fauvel, C., Van Beveren, E., Marques, V., et al. (2016). Body reserves mediate trade-offs between life-history traits: new insights from small pelagic fish reproduction. R. Soc. Open Sci., 3(10), 160202.
Résumé: Limited resources in the environment prevent individuals from simultaneouslymaximizing all life-history traits, resulting in trade-offs. In particular, the cost of reproduction is well known to negatively affect energy investment in growth and maintenance. Here, we investigated these trade-offs during contrasting periods of high versus low fish size and body condition (before/after 2008) in the Gulf of Lions. Female reproductive allocation and performance in anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardine (Sardina pilchardus) were examined based onmorphometric historical data from the 1970s and from 2003 to 2015. Additionally, potential maternal effects on egg quantity and quality were examined in 2014/2015. After 2008, the gonadosomatic index increased for sardine and remained steady for anchovy, while a strong decline in mean length at first maturity indicated earlier maturation for both species. Regarding maternal effects, for both species egg quantity was positively linked to fish size but not to fish lipid reserves, while the egg quality was positively related to lipid reserves. Atresia prevalence and intensity were rather low regardless of fish condition and size. Finally, estimations of total annual numbers of eggs spawned indicated a sharp decrease for sardine since 2008 but a slight increase for anchovy during the last 5 years. This study revealed a biased allocation towards reproduction in small pelagic fish when confronted with a really low body condition. This highlights that fish can maintain high reproductive investment potentially at the cost of other traits which might explain the present disappearance of old and large individuals in the Gulf of Lions.
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Rouyer, T., Ottersen, G., Durant, J. M., Hidalgo, M., Hjermann, D. Ø., Persson, J., et al. (2011). Shifting dynamic forces in fish stock fluctuations triggered by age truncation? Global Change Biology, 17(10), 3046–3057.
Résumé: Accumulating evidence shows that environmental fluctuations and exploitation jointly affect marine fish populations, and understanding their interaction is a key issue for fisheries ecology. In particular, it has been proposed that age truncation induced by fisheries exploitation may increase the population's sensitivity to climate. In this study, we use unique long-term abundance data for the Northeast Arctic stock of cod (Gadus morhua) and the Norwegian Spring-Spawning stock of herring (Clupea harengus), which we analyze using techniques based on age-structured population matrices. After identifying time periods with different age distributions in the spawning stock, we use linear models to quantify the relative effect of exploitation and temperature on the population growth rates. For the two populations, age truncation was found to be associated with an increasing importance of temperature and a relatively decreasing importance of exploitation, while the population growth rate became increasingly sensitive to recruitment variations. The results suggested that the removal of older age classes reduced the buffering capacity of the population, thereby making the population growth rate more dependent on recruitment than adult survival and increasing the effect of environmental fluctuations. Age structure appeared as a key characteristic that can affect the response of fish stocks to climate variations and its consequences may be of key importance for conservation and management.
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