Recruitment mechanisms of tanner crab in the eastern Bering Sea

Abstract

Influences of biophysical conditions on survival of zoeal and early stages of eastern Bering Sea Tanner crab, Chionoecetes bairdi, were investigated using simple linear regression modeling, and a combination of hydrodynamic modeling and spatial and geostatistical methods. Linear regression analyses indicated that estimated reproductive female crab abundance, age 3-7 Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) abundance and flathead sole (Hippoglossoides elassodon) total biomass were statistically related to estimates of recruitment to the 30-50 mm carapace width size interval of juvenile crab. Analysis of output from a Regional Ocean Modeling System simulation model indicated considerable capacity of the Bering Sea oceanography to retain zoeae at regional and local scales. Major transport patterns corresponded to long-term mean flows, with a northwesterly vector. Retention may be a significant recruitment process, particularly in Bristol Bay, which is effectively oceanographically isolated from other source regions of crab larvae. Periods during which conditions may have favored juvenile crab survival were observed at the model-estimated larval endpoints during the early 1980s and mid to late 1990s. While environmental conditions at model-estimated endpoints were highly variable, crab recruitment was positively correlated with endpoint locations either within the periphery of the cold pool, or outside of it, and SST >2° C after allowing for autocorrelation in the juvenile recruitment series. However, limitations of the model, gaps in knowledge of Tanner crab life history and ecology, and the possibility of spurious correlations complicate interpretation of these results.