Vertical Distribution of Age-0 Walleye Pollock During Late Summer: Environment or Ontogeny?

Variability in the late-summer vertical distribution of age-0 Walleye Pollock Gadus chalcogrammus in the southeastern Bering Sea has been attributed to a range of physical and biological factors. Using acoustic data (38 and 120 kHz) collected during the 2010 Bering Aleutian Salmon International Survey (BASIS) and dedicated high-resolution surveys (HR1 and HR2), we evaluated whether late-summer distributions could be explained by water column properties (environment) or whether sampling was likely occurring during the ontogenetic shift of age-0 Walleye Pollock from near-surface habitat to demersal habitat (ontogeny). Neither water column attributes (temperature, relative temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and density gradient) nor the acoustic density of zooplankton prey strongly predicted the acoustic estimates of age-0 Walleye Pollock vertical presence or density. At 6 of 10 paired BASIS—HR1 stations, age-0 Walleye Pollock shifted deeper in the water column between BASIS sampling and the HR1 sampling conducted 8–34 d later. There were no consistent differences in FL (P > 0.05 for 2 of 4 station pairs) or energy density (P > 0.05 for 3 station pairs) between age-0 Walleye Pollock caught in near-surface trawls and those caught in midwater trawls. Our data suggest that the observation of both near-surface and midwater age-0 Walleye Pollock during late summer is likely due to an ontogenetic habitat shift; however, the causative factor was not clear given the limited sample sizes and explanatory variables. The timing of the ontogenetic shift, which appears to have begun before August 18, 2010, can ultimately affect survey strategies, and knowledge of this timing can provide additional insight into factors affecting the overwinter survival of age-0 Walleye Pollock.