Recruitment of short-finned squid in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean and some enviornmental relationships

We found that trends in short-finned squid recruitment were similar among all three Northwest Atlantic fishery areas. This suggests that some broad-scale mechanisms regulate squid recruitment to all fishery areas in a coherent manner. It is also evident that recruitment variability increases to the northeast suggesting that recruitment to Canadian fishery areas is related to population expansion in response to variation in total population size. A research survey catch rate index from bottom trawling on the Grand Bank before the fishery was not strongly related to subsequent squid with water masses and inter-annual variation in the seasonality of slope water intrusion into the survey area. The survey catch rate index for the most southern (USA) area, from trawl data collected during autumn, was directly related to recruitment to all areas is adversely affected by cold events associated with the Labrador Current. At Newfoundland, the northern-most area, warm events related to a strong Gulf Stream influence are usually associated with high recruitment levels but particularly cld events have a dominant and adverse effect which is independent of Gulf Stream variability