Temporal variability in the environmental and geographic predictors of spatial-recruitment in nearshore rockfishes

Geography and habitat availability may be key drivers underlying spatial patterns of larval supply and recruitment success of nearshore marine fishes, but they are poorly understood. We assessed spatial recruitment patterns of nearshore young-of-the-year Pacific rockfishes Sebastes spp. in kelp forest and eelgrass meadow habitats from 2004 to 2014 on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Our sites varied in habitat area, wave exposure, sea surface temperature, and distance from the open coast. We observed recruitment of several species of rockfish, including black rockfish S. melanops, bocaccio rockfish S. paucispinis, and a complex of copper, quillback, and brown rockfishes (S. caurinus, S. maliger, and S. auriculatus; CQB). For black rockfish, the species recruiting in highest abundances, we found that although the environmental variables that predicted recruitment were temporally variable, in some years recruitment was higher at sites with colder sea surface temperatu...