Interactions between climate and population density in the episodic recruitment of bocaccio,Sebastes paucispinis,a Pacific rockfish

Climate strongly influences the population dynamics of many species, but intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as density‐dependence and anthropogenic impacts can confound the effects of climate. Further, the temporal scale of climate response is determined by the unique characteristics of a species’ life history, and determining the most appropriate climate indicator at the proper scale is a challenge faced by population ecologists. We focused on how climate influences juvenile survival of bocaccio (Sebastes paucispinis), a threatened Pacific rockfish, because its abundance has declined >90% in the last 25 years, ostensibly as the result of overfishing. Bocaccio recruitment is episodic, with strong recruitment events apparently related to climate conditions. We developed a sequence of models that related log of juvenile survival to the predictor variables population density and climate, as measured by the Northern Oscillation Index. A model that contained only population density as a predictor variable explained only 1.4% of the variance, while a model that included only climate indices explained 52%. Including density additively with climate did not improve model fit. However, a model that included an interaction between density and climate explained more than 68% of the variance. In addition, models that represented climate as monthly indices fit the juvenile survival data much better than those that averaged climate over 2‐ or 3‐month periods. Our results suggest that climate affects bocaccio recruitment as a series of pulses corresponding to particular life‐history events, with population density mediating the magnitude of the climate effect during the settlement stage.