The small pelagic fishery in the southern Philippines is one of the largest contributors to fisheries production in the country, and is dominated by the Bali sardine Sardinella lemuru. This species is a year-round spawner that has its peak spawning period during the northeast monsoon (NEM) months of November to February. However, there is still limited information on the conditions that affect this species’ survival during its early life history stages. Here, we attempt to discern the importance of temperature, prey density and advection on sardine larvae. The larvae were represented as passive particles that were released in known spawning grounds to simulate dispersal. The conditions the larvae experienced, namely, temperature and estimated prey density based on satellite chlorophyll-a values were recorded at each time step until the estimated recruitment age of 60 days. The temporal and spatial averaged conditions of recruited sardines showed that sardines spawned during the NEM months experienced higher chlorophyll-a, lower (more optimal) sea surface temperature, albeit higher advective loss, than sardines spawned during other months. Comparisons between years showed that during higher reported catch years, sardine larvae experienced lower temperatures and higher retention nearshore. Our results emphasize that sardine stock management efforts need to recognize the contribution of the temporally variable sardine environment to patterns in sardine recruitment and consequently in catches.

菲律宾南部的小型中上层渔业是该国渔业生产的最大贡献者之一，并以巴厘岛沙丁鱼沙丁鱼（Sardinella lemuru）为主导。该物种是一个全年产卵期，其产卵高峰期在11月至2月的东北季风（NEM）月份。但是，关于影响该物种在其生命早期阶段生存的条件的信息仍然有限。在这里，我们试图辨别沙丁鱼幼虫的温度，猎物密度和对流的重要性。幼虫表示为被动粒子，它们在已知的产卵场中释放以模拟扩散。在每个时间步长记录幼虫所经历的条件，即温度和基于卫星叶绿素-a值的估计猎物密度，直到估计募集年龄为60天。募集的沙丁鱼的时空平均条件表明，在NEM月份产卵的沙丁鱼的叶绿素-a较高，尽管对流损失较高，但海平面温度比其他月份较低的沙丁鱼低（最佳）。年度之间的比较表明，在报告的较高捕捞年中，沙丁鱼幼虫的温度较低，近岸的保留较高。我们的结果强调，沙丁鱼种群管理工作需要认识到时变的沙丁鱼环境对沙丁鱼招募和捕捞模式的贡献。