Publication Date:
2021-06-27
Description:
Abstract—In the first of two companion papers, a 54-yr time series for the oyster population in the New Jersey waters of Delaware Bay was analyzed to develop biologicalrelationships necessary to evaluate maximum sustainable yield (MSY) reference points and to consider how multiple stable points affect reference point-based management. Thetime series encompassed two regime shifts, one circa 1970 that ushered in a 15-yr period of high abundance, and a second in 1985 that ushered in a 20-yr period of low abundance. The intervening and succeeding periods have the attributes of alternate stable states. The biological relationships between abundance, recruitment, andmortality were unusual in four ways. First, the broodstock–recruitment relationship at low abundance may have been driven more by the provision of settlement sites for larvae by the adults than by fecundity. Second, the natural mortality rate was temporally unstable and bore a nonlinear relationship to abundance. Third, combined high abundance and low mortality, though likely requiring favorable environmental conditions, seemed also to be a self-reinforcing phenomenon. As a consequence, the abundance –mortality relationship exhibited both compensatory anddepensatory components. Fourth, the geographic distribution of the stock was intertwined with abundance andmortality, such that interrelationships were functions both of spatial organization and inherent populatio
Keywords:
Biology
;
Ecology
;
Fisheries
Repository Name:
AquaDocs
Type:
article
,
TRUE
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
109-132
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