Recruitment dynamics of bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix): coastwide patterns of juvenile recruitment

Location: Estuarine, surf-zone, and inner continental shelf habitats within New Jersey
Principal investigator(s): Able and Wuenschel (RUMFS)
Funding Agency: Rutgers/NMFS Bluefish-Striped Bass Dynamics Program

Further Information:
This project is part of a coordinated, multi-investigator, multi-year, coastwide, quasi-synoptic study using specific gears and methods, and a broad-scale designed survey to define an index of juvenile bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) abundance. Juvenile bluefish utilize a variety of habitats (estuarine and surf-zone), upon arrival from nearshore and offshore spawning events throughout the spring and summer months across the South Atlantic and Middle Atlantic Bights. This project examines habitat use of young-of-the-year (YOY) bluefish in estuaries and the nearshore coastal environments of New Jersey; the latter representing a potential habitat that has been underrepresented in bluefish recruitment studies. Within New Jersey, the research objective is to determine the seasonal, ontogenetic, and depth patterns of occurrence of all cohorts of YOY bluefish in estuarine, surf-zone, and inner continental shelf habitats. The relative abundance of the different cohorts of juvenile bluefish from different habitats will help resource managers determine which cohorts/habitats contribute the most to overall year-class strength. Habitat and regional densities of YOY bluefish determined on the inner continental shelf will also be correlated against indices of YOY bluefish derived from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Northeast Center's fall groundfish survey. Moreover, this research responds to the need for research on a coastwide scale that supports bluefish stock assessment.

Coastwide collaborators:
D. Conover and S. Munch (SUNY Stony Brook)
D. Secor (UMCES, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory)
J. Buckel (NCSU)
T. Lankford (UNCW)
F. Juanes (UMASS)

Links:

Bluefish EA
Note: Supplemented Ecological Assessment of sampling activities (pending) will be posted here when approved.