Effects of Variable Prey and Cohort Dynamics on Growth of Young-of-the-Year Estuarine Bluefish: Evidence for Interactions between Spring- and Summer-Spawned Cohorts

Abstract Previous field studies of bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix have documented variation in young-of-the-year (age-0) growth rates among years and between spring- and summer-spawned cohorts. However, the potential factors responsible for generating variable growth in age-0 bluefish have not been investigated. We constructed an individual-based model that combined size-dependent bluefish foraging with a bioenergetics model to quantify the potential effects of variable prey fish dynamics on first-summer growth of juvenile bluefish. We used long-term monitoring data to define baseline conditions and calibrate the model. We then performed three simulation experiments designed to assess the effects of initial density and arrival timing of prey species and bluefish cohorts on bluefish length distributions on October 1. Simulation experiments indicated that spring-spawned bluefish were robust to fluctuations in prey dynamics because of a spawning strategy that ensures temporal overlap with a diversity of prey f...

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