Variation in the condition factors of California pelagic fishes and associated environmental factors

Time series of condition factors for mackerel, Scomber japonicus , jack mackerel, Truchurus symmetricus , and northern anchovy, Engraulis mordax , stocks in the Southern California region were compared with time series of oceanographic indices to develop hypotheses concerning physical environmental forcing of the population dynamics and energetics of small pelagic fishes. Mackerel and jack mackerel condition factor time series showed decade-scale variation, whereas those of anchovy showed coherent fluctuations for 1 to 2 years. Mackerel, and to a lesser extent jack mackerel, condition factors were correlated with proxy indices of alongshore advection (sea level), offshore advection (Ekman transport), ambient temperature (shore station temperature), and ambient salinity (shore station salinity). The condition factor of anchovy was much less correlated with environmental variables. Multiple regression analyses which included sea level, upwelling and salinity proxies explained 80% (33%) of the variance in the annual (monthly) condition factor of mackerel. The first-order variation in condition factors of mackerel and jack mackerel suggests that they are responding to very large-scale perturbations of the California Current system which are at least partially described by variations in sea level. The population size of mackerel is apparently also responding to these large-scale perturbations, making it difficult to isolate environmental dependence of condition factors from density dependence. The second-order variation is more regional in nature and unexpectedly it appears to be associated with upwelling in the Baja California region.