English

William Peterson,Kurt Fresh,Jennifer Fisher,Brian Burke,Cheryl Morgan,Jay Peterson

doi:10.5670/oceanog.2014.88

Abstract

English

Highlights

Fisheries oceanography includes at least three classes of studies: (1) determination and estimation of the parameters that define the habitats of different life-history stages of fishes, (2) integrated assessment of the “health” of the ecosystems supporting fished species, and (3) assessment of the effects of climate variability and future climate change on growth, survival, and the abundance of fish entering a targeted population
When temporal variations in the local physical and biological indicators were compared to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), we gained new insights into the mechanisms that lead to success or failure of salmon runs and recruitment of other commercially important fishes
That is, when the PDO is in a negative phase, the base of the food chain is anchored by lipid-rich cold-water copepods, and when the PDO is in positive phase, lipid-poor warm-water copepods dominate

Summary

Introduction

Fisheries oceanography includes at least three classes of studies: (1) determination and estimation of the parameters that define the habitats of different life-history stages of fishes, (2) integrated assessment of the “health” of the ecosystems supporting fished species, and (3) assessment of the effects of climate variability and future climate change on growth, survival, and the abundance of fish entering a targeted population (recruitment). Armed with information on fish ecology, ecosystem structure, habitat suitability, and climate variability, fisheries managers should be able to better understand recruitment variability. The central and southern California Current has been a focal point for fisheries oceanographic studies for decades, primarily as a result of the collapse of the Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax) population in the 1940s and subsequent replacement of sardines by northern anchovy (Engraulis mordax). Research by CalCOFI scientists has focused, and continues to focus, on relationships between environmental variability and recruitment of sardine, anchovy, mackerel, rockfish, and squids, with emphasis on the relative roles of local upwelling vs large basin-scale climate cycles such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO)

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion