North Sea Forage Fish Productivity and Fisheries Yield, 40-Year Analysis

40 years of data on recruitment success and growth proxies for herring, sprat, Norway pout, and sandeel in the North Sea. The dataset, from a study by Lotte Worsøe Clausen at the Technical University of Denmark, investigates shifts in forage fish productivity and their influence on fisheries yield. It includes analyses of functional complementarity and correlations with the zooplankton Calanus finmarchicus.

Use Cases

• Modeling maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and fishing mortality (Fmsy) based on described productivity shifts.
• Analyzing functional complementarity and ecosystem resilience based on covariance structures across fish stocks.
• Investigating climate impacts on fish recruitment and growth based on correlations with Calanus finmarchicus data.
• Simulating forage fish biomass and fisheries yield using the described population model parameters.

Strengths

• Covers a 40-year time series, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Includes data for four key forage fish species (herring, sprat, Norway pout, sandeel).
• Analysis includes specific quantitative findings, such as MSY decreases of 33%–68%.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Technical University of Denmark

Collection Method

Principal component analysis and population modeling applied to long-term biological data.

Time Range

40 years (specific start/end years not provided)

Geography

North Sea