Patterns in vendace recruitment in Lake Pyhäjärvi, south‐west Finland

Abstract

A vendace Coregonus albula population has long formed the basis of a flourishing fishery in Lake Pyhäjärvi, south‐west Finland. Between 1971 and 1990, it exhibited variations in year‐class strength generally characterized by a 2‐year cycle of alternating strong and weak year classes, which implied density‐dependent regulation probably due to asymmetrical food competition between age groups. The abundance of piscivorous predators in the lake and the wanning of water after the hatching of larvae in spring together determined the final year‐class strength of vendace. Since 1990, year‐class sizes have remained very low and the 2‐year cycle has been disrupted. The continuously low levels of recruitment could not be explained by an increased larval mortality, although the decline started with 2 successive years with very high mortality of this life stage which reduced the whole spawning stock to a fraction of earlier levels, and consequently led to low larval numbers such that between 1988 and 1996 larval abundance was positively correlated with the spawning stock size. The importance of the spawning stock size to recruitment could also be seen in the whole 26‐year time series as a significant correlation between year‐class sizes with a 2‐year lag. The observed recruitment patterns of the vendace stock in Lake Pyhäjärvi thus show the importance of spawning stock size, intraspecific competition, predator effects and abiotic environmental variation.