Data from: Oceanographic drivers of offspring abundance may increase or decrease variance in reproductive success in a temperate marine fish

We quantified black rockfish recruitment, genetic diversity, and growth rates from otolith microstructure over 5 years (2005-2009) during which oceanographic conditions differed. We used cross-correlations to determine windows of time during which oceanographic variables were significantly correlated with the resulting abundance or genetic diversity of recruits. We found that warmer ocean temperatures were positively correlated with the abundance of recruits, as well as the effective number of breeders.

In contrast, the strength of coastal upwelling during settlement was positively correlated with the annual abundance of new recruits, but was negatively correlated with the effective number of breeders. Larval growth rates were explained substantially more by temperature than by upwelling, and suggested that temperature affected survival through growth, while upwelling affected survival through transport. Our results indicated that cold ocean temperatures and intense upwelling caused sweepstakes-like processes to operate on black rockfish populations, despite high abundances of recruits.

We propose that a decoupling of the mean and variance in reproductive success may be characteristic of organisms that reproduce into uncertain environments.

Usage notes

Data_Recruits.Genotypes.ByYear Microsatellite genotypes of Sebastes melanops recruits collected from Barkley Sound, British Columbia in GENEPOP format.