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Sardine populations in western and eastern boundary current systems have responded oppositely to decadal scale anomalies in ocean temperature, but the mechanism for differing variability has remained unclear. Here, based on otolith microstructure and high-resolution stable isotope analyses, we show that habitat temperature, early life growth rates, energy expenditure, metabolically optimal temperature, and, most importantly, the relationship between growth rate and temperature are remarkably different between the two subpopulations in the western and eastern North Pacific.
(mh=bLxtgc8QXEzzMDAO)6.jpg "Adult Guide Honolulu")
Varying metabolic responses to environmental changes partly explain the contrasting growth responses. Consistent differences in the life-history traits are observed between subpopulations in the western and eastern boundary current systems around South Africa. These growth and survival characteristics can facilitate the contrasting responses of sardine populations to climate change. Populations of marine organisms are dynamic, and the causes of their variability are often difficult to understand.
Sardines Sardinops, Sardina spp. They are globally distributed in all temperate oceans except the western Atlantic with shallow genetic divergence 3 , including regions of distinct oceanographic conditions, i.
(mh=OyJUQobFNzO5AlUx)13.jpg "Woman in Honolulu")
Stock assessments in recent decades 4 , 5 , time series of fishery catches in the 20 th century 6 , and palaeological records in seabed sediment cores 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 all suggest that abundances of sardine populations worldwide have fluctuated by several orders of magnitude at multidecadal scales. As the boom-and-bust cycles have repeatedly occurred over several thousand years 7 , 8 and exhibited correlations with basin-scale climate indices such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation PDO e.
