Investigating the effect of environmental drivers on phenology
Temperature is an important factor of fish reproduction (Huret et al.,
2018). Other covariates may also strongly affect the timing of
reproduction. Especially for species such as sea bass that have part of
their life cycle in the pelagic realm. Other factors such as the
salinity or concentration in chlorophyll A could strongly affect
reproduction timing. Literature does not explicitly mention any clear
threshold for these covariates and in that case more extensive field
sampling would be required to identify the determinant of reproduction
and include these in our approach - see for instance Planque et al.,
(2011).
Furthermore, it is expected that in a changing environment, the time
span of reproduction will shift following temperatures. Some results
already illustrate such phenomenon for sole in the North Sea, the
English Sea and the North East Channel (Fincham et al., 2013). We
consider our approach as an interesting tooI to assess the effect of
climate change on fish phenology in order to preserve fish essential
habitats and ensure the renewal of marine resources in a context of
rapid environmental changes.