Interactions among adult demography, spawning date, growth rate, predation, overwinter mortality, and the recruitment of largemouth bass in a northern lake

Abstract

Using 12 years of data, we evaluated the mechanisms controlling largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, recruitment in a lake near the northern extent of the largemouth bass range. We found that complex interactions among adult demographics, size-selective predation, and overwinter mortality regulate the number of largemouth bass surviving the first year of life. The largest recruitment events required at least a moderate number of adults, but a large number of adults was not sufficient to produce a large cohort of largemouth bass. Predation was controlled by the number of both adult and juvenile bass and was not strongly correlated with reproductive output. Overwinter mortality was size dependent, strongly affecting bass entering the winter at <50-60 mm in length, and likely the result of starvation. Predation and overwinter mortality interacted with spawning date and growth rate to produce variable but predictable patterns of first year survival. At high adult and juvenile densities, predation regulates first year survival. At low adult and juvenile densities, first year survival was regulated by adult demographics and interactions among spawning date, growth rates, and overwinter mortality. Although we can forecast coarse patterns of cohort survival, the survival of individual fish was more difficult to predict because length and age were not highly correlated.