Spatio-temporal variability in western Baltic cod early life stage survival mediated by egg buoyancy, hydrography and hydrodynamics

To disentangle the effects of different drivers on recruitment variability of marine fish, a spatially and temporally explicit understanding of both the spawning stock size and the early life stage dynamics is required. The objectives of this study are to assess the transport of western Baltic cod early life stages as well as the variability in environmentally-mediated survival along drift routes in relation to both spatial (within and between different spawning areas) and temporal (interannual and seasonal) dynamics. A spatially and temporally highly-resolved biophysical model of the Baltic Sea was used to describe mortalities and survival success of eggs and yolk-sac larvae—represented by individual, virtual drifters—as predicted proportions of drifters that either died due to bottom contact or lethal temperatures, or that survived up to the end of the yolk-sac larval stage. The environmental conditions allowing survival of cod and yolk-sac larvae indicate that favourable conditions predominately occurred during the late spawning season, while minimum survival rates could be expected from January to March. The spatial analysis of different spawning areas revealed highest survival chances in the Kattegat, intermediate survival in the Great Belt, and only low survival in the Sound, Kiel Bay and Mecklenburg Bay.