Many of the processes influencing recruitment to an adult fish population or entry into a fishery occur very early in life. The variations in life histories and behaviours of young fish and the selective processes operating on this variation ultimately determine the identities and abundance of survivors.
This important volume brings together contributions from many of the world's leading researchers from the field of fish ecology. Early Life History and Recruitment in Fish Populations focuses on three major themes of pressing importance in the analysis of the role that the early life history of fishes plays in the number and quality of recruits: the selective processes at play in their early life history; the contributions of early life history to the understanding of recruitment.
- Variability in the early life history of fish and its role in population processes
- Recruitment in fish populations: the paradigm shift generated by the effects of population structure on quality of reproductive output in marine iteroparous fish
- Regulation of energy acquisition and allocation to respiration, growth and reproduction in fish
- Environmental influences on egg and propagule sizes in marine fish
- Life history responses to environmental variability in early life
- Natural selection and the evolution of growth rate in the early life history: what are the trade-offs? Patterns and consequences of selective processes in teleost early life histories
- The use of field studies to investigate selective processes in fish early life history
- Ontogeny, growth, and the recruitment process
- Ontogeny of cannabalism in larval and juvenile fish with special emphasis on Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua
- Predation on juvenile fish: interactions between size-structured predators and prey
- Size-based foraging success and vulnerability to predation: selection of survivors in individual-based models of larval fish populations
- Size-selective predation on juvenile North Sea flatfish and possible implications for recruitment
- The utility of early life history studies and the challenges of recruitment prediction
- Compensatory responses to decreased young-of-the-year survival: an individual-based modeling analysis of winter flounder
- Interannual variability in stage-specific survival rates and the causes of recruitment variation
- Relationships between early life history traits and recruitment among coral reef fishes