Otolith annual growth increments for cod populations in the Northeast Atlantic ...

• Main Author: Campana, Steven
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Gadus morhua; Atlantic cod; Otolith; growth increment; synchrony; FOS Natural sciences; Greenland; Lofoten; Norway; Sisimiut; atlantic cod; Iceland; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj4s; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj4s

Large-scale, climate-induced synchrony in the productivity of fish populations is becoming more pronounced in the world’s oceans. As synchrony increases, a population’s ‘portfolio’ of responses can be diminished, in turn reducing its resilience to strong perturbation. Here we argue that the costs and benefits of trait synchronization, such as the expression of growth rate are context dependent. Synchrony among individuals could actually be beneficial for populations if growth is optimized during favourable conditions and then declines under poor conditions when a broader portfolio of responses is needed. Importantly, growth synchrony among individuals within populations has seldom been measured, despite well-documented evidence of synchrony across populations. Here, we used century-scale time series of annual otolith growth to test for changes in growth synchronization among individuals within multiple populations of a marine keystone species (Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua). On the basis of 74,662 annual growth ... : Growth chronologies were based on cod sampled at annual intervals over periods of up to 94 years from five major cod populations in the Northeast Atlantic (Table S1). For the migratory populations of Norway and Iceland, samples were collected from the main spawning grounds during the spawning season (Norway: the Lofoten archipelago, January - early May; southwestern Iceland: March – May). The Faroe cod population was sampled on the Faroe plateau spawning grounds during the spawning season (February – April) at bottom depths shallower than 150 m. The Godthaabsfjord cod population on the west coast of Greenland (64°N, 51°W, NAFO Division 1D) was sampled mainly (88%) between April and September, with small numbers caught during the reminder of the year. Cod from the inshore area around Sisimiut, West Greenland (66°45’N, 53°30’W, NAFO Division 1B) were primarily caught during June to August (70%), whereas the rest were caught during April, May, September and October. Most samples were collected with research or ...