A Length-based Analysis of Recruitment Variability in the Korean Pollock Population under Data-limited Conditions

The walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) population in Korean waters had thrived until the mid-1980s, but this fish population has been depleted since the late 1990s. Limited data and lack of ecological research about the population prevented us from revealing the mechanism or material cause that resulted in the population’s collapse. Instead, we intended to examine possible hypotheses for the collapse, and built a statistical linear model, where juvenile fish, adult fish, and environmental factors were explored as variables. Because actual data on fish ages were not available, we estimated age compositions of the fish sample, applying the length-frequency analysis suggested by Schnute and Fournier (1980) to data on their lengths. Then we used the estimates of age compositions to determine adequate time lags between juvenile and adult stages in the statistical linear model. The selected final model suggested that the depletion of the fish population was associated with changes in water temperatures during April, June, and October and with adult abundance, but was not with the other species (e.g., sandfish (Arctoscopus japonicus) and flatfishes (Pleuronectidae sp.)) considered in the model. We further interpreted the results from ecological perspectives, referring to previous studies and ecological hypotheses.