A Review on Herring, <I>Clupea Harengus</I> (Actinopterygii: Clupeiformes: Clupeidae) Recruitment and Early Life Stage Ecology in the Western Baltic Sea

Abstract

Abstract. Herring, Clupea harengus L., is an important commercial fish species in the Baltic Sea region since medieval times. The western Baltic spring spawning herring (WBSS) is one of three major Baltic Sea herring stocks, supporting a significant over-regional fishery in the western Baltic Sea as well as in the Kattegat and Skagerrak area. One major component spawns in the vicinity of the German island of Rügen and the associated major spawning ground, the Greifswalder Bodden (GWB), a shallow, semi-enclosed sub-system of estuarine character. Research of herring biology and ecology has an extensive history in the area probably due to the long fishery tradition and the importance of this particular herring stock for the local Baltic coast economy. In this review most of the scientific findings about WBSS in its spawning areas, mainly the GWB, is summarized. This study is based on critical review of over 120 publications and scientific sources from the past 100 years containing relevant information on possible consequences of multiple environmental and anthropogenic induced stressors of herring recruitment and productivity. Besides current peer reviewed literature a significant amount of grey literature was included, consisting primarily of papers and reports written in German language and representing the only historical data sources and published documentation of regional western Baltic herring ecology.

First record of the non-indigenous jellyfish Blackfordia virginica (Mayer, 1910) in the Baltic Sea

“…Therefore, negative impacts on fish recruits could be expected via food competition as well as direct predation, especially for coastal areas of the Baltic, where e.g. herring is spawning [38]. This highlights that the new record of this non-indigenous species in northern Europe is a matter of concern for low saline environments.…”

Abundance and distribution of larval herring, Clupea harengus (Actinopterygii: Clupeiformes: Clupeidae) in the Pomeranian Bay, Baltic Sea as an indicator of spawning sites

“…Unfortunately, no other data for the Pomeranian Bay are available for comparison. Considerably more information is available from the German side of the border, regarding larval and juvenile herring distribution in the nearby Greifswalder Bodden and adjacent waters, including both historic (Thieme and Biester 1981, Brielmann and Biester 1981, Brielmann 1989, Biester 1989) and more recent data (Oeberst et al 2009a, 2009b, von Dorrien et al 2013, Polte et al 2014.…”

“…The only available data on the ecology of the early life stages of herring in Polish coastal areas published quite recently refer to the Vistula Lagoon (Fey 1999(Fey , 2001(Fey , 2006. The situation is opposite in the case of information on early life stages of herring available for the western Baltic Sea in the German waters, reviewed recently by von Dorrien et al (2013).…”

Diversity and Physiological Tolerance of Native and Invasive Jellyfish/Ctenophores along the Extreme Salinity Gradient of the Baltic Sea

“…This makes B. virginica a potential threat as a food competitor and direct predator of local fish populations in areas where they reach high population densities, as observed in other invaded areas of Europe [71]. In this context, coastal areas of the Baltic Sea are especially vulnerable, as those regions are known to support important spawning and recruitment sites of commercially important fish species e.g., Herring [72]. It is expected that very high abundances observed in the Kiel Canal [15], which is connecting the North Sea with the Baltic Sea, seed animals into the SW Baltic Sea, from where they can potentially colonize the entire Baltic Sea.…”