Plankton effect on cod recruitment in the North Sea
Top Cited Papers
- 1 December 2003
- journal article
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature
- Vol. 426 (6967) , 661-664
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02164
Abstract
The Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) has been overexploited in the North Sea since the late 1960s and great concern has been expressed about the decline in cod biomass and recruitment. Here we show that, in addition to the effects of overfishing, fluctuations in plankton have resulted in long-term changes in cod recruitment in the North Sea (bottom-up control). Survival of larval cod is shown to depend on three key biological parameters of their prey: the mean size of prey, seasonal timing and abundance. We suggest a mechanism, involving the match/mismatch hypothesis, by which variability in temperature affects larval cod survival and conclude that rising temperature since the mid-1980s has modified the plankton ecosystem in a way that reduces the survival of young cod.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effects of environmental variability on growth and recruitment in cod (Gadus morhua) using a comparative approachOceanologica Acta, 2000
- Year class strengths of zooplankton in the North Sea and then-relation to cod and herring abundanceJournal of Plankton Research, 1998
- Prey size spectra and prey availability of larval and small juvenile codJournal of Fish Biology, 1997
- Potential collapse of North Sea cod stocksNature, 1997
- An evaluation of the stock structure of North Sea cod, haddock, and whiting since 1920, together with a consideration of the impacts of fisheries and predation effects on their biomass and recruitmentICES Journal of Marine Science, 1996
- Variability in survival of larval fish: disentangling components with a generalized individual-based modelCanadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 1996
- Hypotheses for the decline of cod in the North AtlanticMarine Ecology Progress Series, 1996
- Sampling by the continuous plankton recorder surveyProgress in Oceanography, 1994
- Plankton Production and Year-class Strength in Fish Populations: an Update of the Match/Mismatch HypothesisPublished by Elsevier ,1990
- The gadoid outburst in the North SeaICES Journal of Marine Science, 1984