Modelling the connectivity between spawning and nursery grounds under environmental forcing: application to European sea bass in the Northeast Atlantic.

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

Despite the economical importance of wild European sea bass, little is known concerning its spatial structure and dynamics. Yet, in a context of climate change, significant recruitment variability and a northward distribution shift of Northeast Atlantic sea bass have been observed over the past two decades. In the present study, we used coupled models (simulating hydrodynamics, transport and bioenergetics) over a period to investigate the impact, on nursery settlement, of contrasted hydroclimatic conditions in the Northeast Atlantic. Maps of larval dispersal as well as connectivity matrices between spawning grounds and coastal/estuarine nurseries showed significant spatio-temporal transport and growth variability whose relation to environmental factors is explored.