ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on May 16, 2008
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2008 65(6):946-952; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn081
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Prerecruit survival and recruitment of northern Gulf of St Lawrence Atlantic cod
1 Pêches et Océans Canada, Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, CP 1000, Mont-Joli, QC, Canada G5H 3Z4
2 Québec-Océan, Département de Biologie, Université Laval, 1045 avenue de la Médecine, Québec, QC, Canada G1V 0A6
Correspondence to D. E. Duplisea: tel: +1 418 775 0881; fax: +1 418 775 0740; e-mail: duplisead{at}dfo-mpo.gc.ca.
Duplisea, D. E., and Robert, D. 2008. Prerecruit survival and recruitment of northern Gulf of St Lawrence Atlantic cod. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 946–952.Recruitment (R) of exploited marine fish populations is usually modelled exclusively as a function of spawning-stock biomass (SSB). A problem arising when modelling over long time-series is that the nature of the R–SSB relationship is unlikely to be stationary. Changes are often interpreted as productivity regime shifts and are linked to alterations in prerecruit survival rate. We examine the role of environment and predation by fish and harp seals as factors affecting the R–SSB relationship in the northern Gulf of St Lawrence cod, by fitting linear models using combinations of covariates to explain cod prerecruit survival. The most parsimonious model (based on a Bayesian Information Criterion, BIC) included cod, mackerel, and temperature, whereas redfish and seals did not appear in any of the best-fit models. Recruitment models derived from this analysis could be used in operating models for management strategy evaluation simulations for northern Gulf cod, so one could develop harvest control rules that are robust to changes in recruitment productivity regimes.
Keywords: parsimony, precautionary approach, predation risk, productivity regime, recruitment
Received 18 June 2007; accepted 8 April 2008; advance access publication 16 May 2008.