Report of the ICES/BSRP Workshop on Developing and Testing Environmentally-Sensitive Stock-Recruitment Relationships of Baltic Herring and Sprat Stocks (WKSSRB)

The direct and indirect effects of climate‐induced hydrographic change and the effect of the parental stock on five Baltic herring stocks and Baltic sprat were investigated. Specifically,  WKSSRB  reviewed,  updated  and  validated  recruitment‐environment  relationships developed by WKRPBH (ICES 2007b) for five distinct Baltic Sea herring stocks: the Western Baltic (WBH), the Main Basin (MBH), the Gulf of Riga (GRH), the Bothnian Sea (BSH) and the Bothnian Bay (BBH). The predictors to be included in the final recruitment models were selected on the basis of the parsimonious principle and the  ecological  criterion  fulfilled  simultaneously  (ICES  2007b).  Data  were  also  up‐dated, including a revised time series of temperature, Baltic Sea Index and the inclu‐sion of the Bottom Depth Anomalies for sprat recruitment modelling.