Spatiotemporal patterns of variability in the abundance and distribution of winter-spawned pelagic juvenile rockfish in the California Current.

ABSTRACT: Rockfish are an important component of West Coast fisheries and California Current food webs, and recruitment (cohort strength) for rockfish populations has long been characterized as highly variable for most studied populations. Research efforts and fisheries surveys have long sought to provide greater insights on both the environmental drivers, and the fisheries and ecosystem consequences, of this variability. Here, variability in the temporal and spatial abundance and distribution patterns of young-of-the-year (YOY) rockfishes are described based on midwater trawl surveys conducted throughout the coastal waters of California Current between 2001 and 2019. Results confirm that the abundance of winter-spawning rockfish taxa in particular is highly variable over space and time. Although th

SUBMITTER: Field JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8158922 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature