Striped Bass on Mount Rushmore of Fish

Fishy Fridays

Weekly spotlight on fisheries science journal articles

 

Jeff Kopaska
AFS Executive Director
jkopaska@fisheries.org

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to be a guest on the USFWS Fish of the Week podcast. Toward the end of the session, Mike McInerny (retired Minnesota DNR) and I were asked by the hosts “thinking about the America250 anniversary this summer, what species would you put on the Mount Rushmore of fish?” You will have to listen to the podcast to determine all our answers, and learn more about my favorite fish! One of my answers was a nod to East Coast fisheries, and I mentioned the Atlantic Striped Bass. Today’s paper from Marine and Coastal Fisheries looks back at strong Striped Bass year classes from the 1980s, and compared current larval feeding assessments back to studies from that time. The results do not pinpoint larval feeding success as a strong predictor of year class strength. An interesting observation from the study is that spawning timing is much more compressed now compared to the 1980s, perhaps leading to more of the offspring being susceptible to ill-timed environmental impacts (temperature swings, runoff events, etc.). Enjoy!

Influence of feeding on zooplankton on Striped Bass postlarval mortality, growth, and year-class success in the Choptank River, Maryland, during the 1980s and 2023–2024