Scenarios employed to simulate cod population dynamics in the eastern Baltic Sea (ICES Subdivisions 25–32) during the 21st century for different combinations of exploitation, salinity (as a consequence of expected climate change) and seal predation.

The categories “low” for the seal predation rate refer to the present level of seal predation which is part of the overall natural mortality [37]; i. e., no additional seal predation mortality was imposed on cod for these simulations. The seal predation category “increasing” refers to the increasing predation on cod from seals that occurs as the seal population increases during the 21st century to its historical abundance level. This additional predation is added to other sources of natural mortality for cod. The long-term mean for salinity is for the period 1974–2006.