Physical–biological coupling and the challenge of understanding fish recruitment in freshwater lakes

Abstract

Marine fisheries recruitment research has emphasized approaches that explore physical–biological interactions during early life stages (ELS). Herein, we review evidence that such approaches would benefit our understanding of fish recruitment in large freshwater lakes, which exhibit similar physical processes and contain fishes with comparable life-history characteristics as marine ecosystems. A review of the primary literature (1965–2008) for freshwater and marine ecosystems revealed that coupled biophysical research on fish ELS (i) has benefited our ability to understand and predict fish recruitment in marine ecosystems; (ii) has been virtually absent from small lake ecosystems but has been growing in the Laurentian Great Lakes; and (iii) has shown that similar to marine ecosystems, physical processes can control fish recruitment in large lakes through direct and indirect pathways, often involving interactions between biological processes and physicochemical conditions. In addition to identifying specific research gaps and opportunities, this perspective points to the need for increased research on physical–biological coupling in large lake ecosystems, as well as the continued erosion of barriers between marine and freshwater fisheries recruitment science.