Early life history traits of common sardine, Strangomera bentincki (Osteichthyes: Clupeidae) estimated by otolith microstructure analysis

Temperature and prey density drive growth and otolith formation of the world's most valuable fish stock

“…The analysis of otolith microstructure (i.e., the number and width of daily increments) is a widely used technique in fisheries science to provide estimates of age and back-calculated somatic growth rate 19 , 20 . The technique has been widely applied to obtain the information needed for the stock assessment and management of the Peruvian anchovy stock in the HCS 21 , 22 .…”

Spatiotemporal analysis of the daily growth traits of the prerecruits of a small pelagic fish in response to environmental drivers

“…The great interannual variability in recruitment observed in most small pelagic fishes is presumably linked to environmental drivers affecting their early life (Bertrand et al., 2008; Nishikawa, 2019; Pikitch et al., 2012; Politikos, Curchitser, Rose, Checkley, & Fiechter, 2018), when natural mortality becomes maximum in all teleosts (Houde, 1989a, 1994) and even more conspicuously in clupeiforms exhibiting small size at hatching (Pikitch et al., 2012). However, studies on the early stages of clupeiforms are very scarce, mainly focused on their larval life (e.g., Domenella, Donato, & La Mesa, 2016; Rogers, Hare, & Lindquist, 2001; Rodríguez‐Valentino et al, 2018) and less frequently in their late juvenile phases (e.g., Aldanondo, Cotano, & Etxebeste, 2011; Plaza, Cerna, Landaeta, Hernández, & Contreras, 2018). Conversely, most life history traits related to early juvenile life, from post‐larvae to prerecruits, remain unknown for most clupeiform (Peck, Reglero, Takahashi, & Catalán, 2013), likely due to low vulnerability to both plankton and fishing gears used to caught larvae and recruits, respectively.…”