First-Year Density and Growth as They Relate to Recruitment of White Perch to the Adult Stock in Oneida Lake, New York, 1968–2011

AbstractRecruitment of fish to the adult stock is often determined early in life, and identifying relationships between first-year abundance and subsequent recruitment has significant implications for monitoring and management. Despite the importance of White Perch Morone americana as both predator and prey in systems where they are abundant, relatively little has been published on their early life history, and their recruitment patterns are generally not well understood. We use data over a period of 44 years to investigate factors related to first-year density and growth of White Perch and their recruitment to the adult stock in Oneida Lake, New York. Simple linear regression was used to examine the relationships between select physical and biological factors and first-year density and growth of White Perch estimated from Miller high-speed sampler and trawl surveys and estimates of year-class recruitment to the adult stock determined from gill-net surveys. Akaike's information criterion corrected for sma...