Climate Scale Environmental Factors Affecting Year Class Fluctuations of Chesapeake Bay Croaker 'Micropogonias undulatus.'

摘要

Abundance of young-of-the-year croaker, Micropogonias undulatus, in the York River correlate with VIMS pier average January-February temperature allowing a prediction of summer abundance of the young-of-the-year croaker. Autoregressive analyses were done on both young-of-the-year and commercial catch. No statistically significant autoregressive relationships were found. Previous studies have shown experimentally and empirically that temperatures below 4C can cause croaker mortalities. Hypothetical year class contributions to commercial catch are predicted from regressions on the summer year class index. From these relationships, a statistical model was developed using winter temperatures to predict young-of-the-year survival and hence, the commercial catch contribution of each year class over a 1-3 year period.