ABSTRACT: Understanding the processes shaping the dynamics of anadromous fish populations is essential for their management and conservation. Yet, little is known about how variation in performance at sea affects their population dynamics. Here we show that variation in body growth at sea contributes to explaining variation in the reproductive potential for 2 Atlantic salmon Salmo salar populations, but to a varying extent. To this end, we assembled data collected during 50 yr for 2 Baltic salmon populations of hatchery origin, including annually released smolts, survival at sea estimates, size-specific growth at sea, annual length distributions of returning adult females and their reproductive potential. The regression models fitted to explain the reproductive potential of our 2 study populations improved when growth at sea was included as an explanatory variable, in addition to smolt year class abundance and estimates of their survival at sea. This link between body growth at sea and population-level reproductive potential suggests that growth at sea can be important to consider when resolving variation in recovery and dynamics among salmon populations sharing the same sea.

中文翻译：

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大西洋鲑鱼在海上的生长变化影响其特定种群的繁殖潜力

摘要：了解形成溯河鱼类种群动态的过程对其管理和保护至关重要。然而，人们对海上表现的变化如何影响其种群动态知之甚少。在这里，我们显示了在海上有助于身体生长的变异在2大西洋鲑鱼的繁殖潜力解释变异大西洋鲑人口，但程度不同。为此，我们收集了 50 年收集的 2 个来自孵化场的波罗的海鲑鱼种群的数据，包括每年释放的小鲑鱼、海上存活率估计、海上特定尺寸的生长、返回成年雌性的年长度分布及其繁殖潜力。回归模型适用于解释我们的 2 个研究种群的生殖潜力，当将海上生长作为解释变量时，除了 smolt 年份类丰度和它们在海上的存活率估计之外，它们的繁殖潜力也有所提高。海上身体生长与种群水平繁殖潜力之间的这种联系表明，在解决共享同一海域的鲑鱼种群之间恢复和动态变化的变化时，考虑海上生长可能很重要。