Reply to the comment by Payne et al. on Does the fall phytoplankton bloom control recruitment of Georges Bank haddock, Melanogrammus aeglefinus, through parental condition?

Payne et al. (Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 66: 869-872, 2009) raised several points concerning the handling and interpretation of data that went into an analysis of the population dynamics of Georges Bank haddock that suggested a relationship between the fall phytoplankton bloom and recruitment (Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 65: 1076-1086, 2008). Their main points were the manner in which logarithmic transforms were applied, whether the 2003 year class was truly as large as estimated in a 2006 assessment, and if correlation analyses of zooplankton data should be reconsidered. The reply to these comments was aided by a new assessment which provided additional years of data and improved the quality of the recruitment time series. The reply analyses showed that the relationships were robust to the way the logarithmic transform was applied, the initial estimates of the size of the 2003 year class were correct, and relationships between recruitment and spring zooplankton biomass levels remain statistically insignificant. From these new analyses, the interpretations and conclusions reached in the original paper remain the same; the fall bloom has emerged as a candidate explanatory variable for the stock independent variation in haddock recruitment on Georges Bank.