Fisheries shocks provide an opportunity to reveal multiple recruitment sources of sardine in the Sea of Japan.

ABSTRACT: The abrupt decline in sardine catches in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea (SJ-ECS) in 2014 and 2019 and the recovery in the following years call into question the current assumption that sardines in the SJ-ECS form a self-recruiting subpopulation. To test this hypothesis, we analysed otolith stable oxygen and carbon isotope profiles (δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C) of age-0 and age-1 sardines from 2010 and 2013-2015 year-classes captured in the SJ-ECS, as geographic markers for nursery areas. Age-0 sardines generally showed a significant ontogenetic decrease in otolith δ¹⁸O from larval to juvenile stages. However, the majority of age-1 captured in spring 2011, 2015 and 2016 showed non-decreasing otolith δ¹⁸O profiles, suggesting that the age-0 off the Japanes

SUBMITTER: Sakamoto T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11408631 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature