A recent study entitled “Importance of the Gulf of Cádiz as a nursery for small pelagic fish Sardina pilchardus« by Enrique González-Ortegón at ICMAN-CSIC, and in collaboration with IEO-Cádiz, IFAPA-Toruño and IPMA showed interesting results about environmental forcing affecting the advection of sardine early stages to the one of its main nursery area, the western platform shelf of the Gulf of Cadiz.
The sardine biomass decreased 75% in the past 12 years and since 2009 there is high risk of producing low recruitment (see S301 by Silva et al from IPMA). The continued low stock productivity lead to consecutive lower catch advice guided by the Portuguese-Spanish Management Plan. While in recent years fishing mortality is relatively low, biomass and recruitment are still at low historical levels.
Recruitment of many marine organisms depends on transport and survival of eggs and larvae from spawning grounds to nursery areas. Coastal waters play an important role as nursery areas of sardines. However, we know little about environmental factors that affect the advection and survival of sardine early stages to their nurseries area. We showed the way in which environmental forcing (the wind regime, North and West components) and adult stock biomass (biology geometric), among others, determine the advection and abundance of sardine early stages into the western platform shelf of the Gulf of Cadiz.
The results could contribute to increasing our knowledge about the processes that affect the recruitment of the European sardine and eventually to implementing an ecosystem approach to its fishery in the Gulf of Cadiz.
