Bioenergetics of Stock and Recruitment

Abstract

A new concept of recruitment is derived from bioenergetic considerations of life history phenomena. The proposed mechanism has two components, a stock-dependent process where individual reproductive effort is a decreasing function of the abundance of the mature stock, and a density-dependent mortality process which operates during the prerecruit stage. A generalized equation describing these processes yields a family of recruitment curves which vary from being asymptotic to dome-shaped, depending on the parameter values. The theory suggests that species like Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus harengus) which tend to have small density-dependent growth coefficients and which allocate most of their surplus energy to reproduction should have a small terminal body size, a high length at maturity to L∞ ratio, and a nearly asymptotic recruitment curve. By contrast, gadoids follow a different life history strategy and therefore should have a higher L∞ and more convex recruitment function. These consequences are shown to be in accord with observed differences in L∞ and with the graded series of recruitment curves found for a wide range of marine fish stocks. From a more general viewpoint, analysis of the energy dynamics of natural populations suggests that (1) there is a real — as opposed to inferred — limit to growth, L∞, which in many species is probably determined by their reproductive effort; (2) the increase in surplus energy with body size can be linked to the theory of optimal foraging; and (3) the intensity of density-dependent growth, which influences the shape of the recruitment curve, is an increasing function of the generation time of the prey organisms of different species. Thus gadoids tend to have dome-shaped reproduction curves because they feed on slow-maturing prey, which can be overcropped by large year-classes.Key words: stock and recruitment, bioenergetics, optimal foraging, growth, reproduction, life history strategies