An Individual Based Model of Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) early life in Arctic polynyas: I. Simulated growth in relation to hatch date in the Northeast Water (Greenland Sea) and the North Water (Baffin Bay)

A bioenergetics Individual Based Model (IBM) is developed to simulate the early growth (age 0 to 43 d) of Arctic cod hatched from mid-May to mid-July in the Northeast Water (NEW) in 1993 and the North Water (NOW) in 1998. In the model, the growth of a virtual larva is forced by observed temperature and prey concentrations as dictated by its hatch date. The functional response of food consumption to temperature in the range -1.8 to +1.6 degrees C was estimated based on the gut content of field-captured larvae. A sensitivity analysis indicated that high prey concentrations could compensate the depressing effect of low temperature on growth and vice-versa. The IBM reproduced well the observed differences in mean length-at-age between the two polynyas/years, in particular the poor growth in the North Water. In the NEW, a temporal match between yolk exhaustion and good feeding conditions occurred for early hatchets (abundant prey - medium temperature) and mid-season hatchers (medium prey - high temperature), which reached the largest sizes. In the NOW, prey concentrations were generally low at yolk exhaustion and variations in growth among cohorts depended essentially on temperature. Sub-sampling the model output to mimic the limited temporal resolution of sampling at sea reduced the variability in virtual growth and increased the match between simulated and observed variances in length-at-age. The IBM nevertheless underestimated the observed exceptional growth during match events. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.